On fermentation / by P. Schützenberger.

  • Schützenberger, P. (Paul), 1829-1897.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On fermentation / by P. Schützenberger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    succinic acid the altered sugar which penetrates by endosmose through its membranous envelope. If we substitute for the cell of beer-yeast a cell of lactic ferment, we still see the sugar disappear, but the products into which the ponderable elements of the glucose are resolved are different; instead of alcohol and carbon dioxide, we have lactic acid. The modus faciendi of the vital force of this cell is evidently not the same as that of the former one ; but we cannot, therefore, affirm that there are as many vital chemical forces as there are reactions. When a pencil of solar light passes through a prism, the constituent parts of this pencil are isolated on account of their unequal refrangibility. The least refrangible rays are revealed to us by the effects of heat (the dilatation and change of condition of bodies); next come the luminous rays, which excite on the retina the impressions of colour forming the spectrum ; and then, beyond the violet, is a series of invisible rays, which are revealed only by their decomposing action on certain combinations (salts of silver, &c.). But we know now that all these calorific, luminous, and chemi- cal rays, some of which give heat without light, and others light without heat, or excite chemical reactions, differ only in the rapidity of the vibratory movements of the ether, and are essentially distinguishable from each other only by their wave-length. It is possible that an analogous bond may unite the vital chemical forces of the different elementary organisms. Sand, sprinkled uniformly on the surface of a vibrating plate, collects in nodal lines of different forms, according to the sharp- ness of the note which we draw from this plate by