Licence: In copyright
Credit: The evolution of life / by H. Charlton Bastian. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
83/420 (page 59)
![phere, which contained, as he was well aware a large amount of what those who differed from him regarded as not-living ferment (mere organic matter), while possibly there existed living Bacteria or their o-erms-for at this date none such had ever been definitely discovered in the atmosphere. In ex- plaining the results of his experiments, however, JVL Pasteur thought he was pursuing a logical and scientific method when he attributed the fertilismg results obtained to the action of the possibly existing elements (Bacteria) in the inoculating compound; while he ignored altogether the other element (mere organic matter) which was certainly present in com- paratively large quantities. As a very able writer said in an article on The Germ Theory and Spontaneous Generation, in the Contemporary Review for April 1877:—Once assume as a starting-point [the truth] of the germ theory, and the ascertainment of the death-point of bacterium germs is the simplest thing in the world. If life appears in the fluid inoculated with them, say at once that it is due to the germs, and that the heat was not enough to kill them. If, on the other hand, the fluid remains barren after the germs have been. introduced, it follows that the heat was fatal. For the purpose of testing the validity of the germ- theory, it is obvious that no such petitio principii can be for a moment admitted; and yet, oddly enough, it was only by this deliciously naive reason- ing that Pasteur supported his view of the vital resistance of bacterial germs. He found that one or two acid fluids with which he worked would not](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22651020_0083.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
