Ferments and their actions / by Carl Oppenheimer ; Translated from the German by C. Ainsworth Mitchell.

Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Ferments and their actions / by Carl Oppenheimer ; Translated from the German by C. Ainsworth Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    CHAPTER XXII. THE BIOLOGY OF ALCOHOLIC FERMENTATION. Occurrence of the Alcoliol-producing Ferment.—Since alcoholic fermentation has, hitherto at least, only been observed in the closest connection with a series of vegetable organisms, the discussion of this subject falls under the head of the biological side of our problem. The investigations into the ultimate cause of alcoholic fermentation became part of the history of yeast- organisms, from the moment when, by the classical researches of Pasteur, the significance of these living vegetable cells was irrefutably demonstrated. Prior to that the theory of Gay- Lussac,1 of which an outline was given in the general part—viz., that oxygen was the immediate cause which determined the occurrence of alcoholic fermentation—was the one which in general predominated. And when at length the significance of the living cells was recognised, it required a very long time and a hard struggle to lay the ghost of the opposing theory. The discovery that yeast consisted of round bodies was made by Leeuwenhoek,2 who, however, did not draw any far-reaching conclusions from the fact; nor had the casual statements of Desmazieres,2 who concluded that yeast possessed an organised structure, any greater importance. The real scientific discovery of the yeast-fungus was after- wards made almost simultaneously by Cagniard-Latour3 and Schwann,4 whose conclusions received further support from the results published shortly after by Turpin,2 Kutzing,5 and Bouchardat.6 Schwann then opposed Gay-Lussac’s theory on the grounds that even in the presence of free oxygen no fermenta- 1 For further particulars, see A. Mayer, loc. cit., 37-40. 2 Quoted by Pasteur, Die Alkoholgdhrg., loc. cit., 42. (See also Kutzing, loc. cit.). 3 Cagniard-Latour, Ann. d. Chim. et Phys. [2], lxviii., 206, 1836. 4 Schwann, Poggendorffs Ann., xli., 184, 1837. * Kutzing, J. pr. Ch., xi., 385. 4 Bouchardat, Comptes Pendus, xviii., 1120, 1844. 17