Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/496

480 Schwann then varied his experimental argument, with no alteration in the result. His final conclusion was, that putrefaction is due to decompositions of organic matter attendant on the multiplication therein of minute organisms. These organisms were derived not from the air, but from something contained in the air, which was destroyed by a sufficiently high temperature. There never was a more determined opponent of the doctrine of spontaneous generation than Schwann, though a strange attempt was made a year and a half ago to enlist him and others equally opposed to it on the side of the doctrine.

The physical character of the agent which produces putrefaction was further revealed by Helmholtz in 1843. By means of a membrane he separated a sterilized putrescible liquid from a putrefying one. The sterilized infusion remained perfectly intact. Hence it was not the liquid of the putrefying mass—for it could freely diffuse through the membrane—but something contained in the liquid, and which was stopped by the membrane, that caused the putrefaction. In 1854 Schroeder and Von Dusch struck into this inquiry, which was subsequently followed up by Schroeder alone. These able experimenters employed plugs of cotton-wool to filter the air supplied to their infusions. Fed with such air, in the great majority of cases the putrescible liquids remained perfectly sweet after boiling. Milk formed a conspicuous exception to the general rule. It putrefied after boiling, though supplied with carefully-filtered air. The researches of Schroeder bring us up to the year 1859.

In that year a book was published which seemed to overturn some of the best-established facts of previous investigators. Its title was "Hétérogénie," and its author was F. A. Pouchet, Director of the Museum of Natural History at Rouen. Ardent, laborious, learned, full not only of scientific but of metaphysical fervor, he threw his whole energy into the inquiry. Never did a subject require the exercise of the cold, critical faculty more than this one—calm study in the unraveling of complex phenomena, care in the preparation of experiments, care in their execution, skillful variation of conditions, and incessant questioning of results, until repetition had placed them beyond doubt or question. To a man of Pouchet's temperament, the subject was full of danger—danger not lessened by the theoretic bias with which he approached it. This is revealed by the opening words of his preface: "Lorsque, par la méditation, il fut évident pour moi que la génération spontanée était encore l'un des moyens qu'emploie la nature pour la reproduction des êtres, je m'appliquai a découvrir par quels procédés on pouvait parvenir à en mettre les phénomènes en évidence." It is needless to say that such a prepossession required a strong curb. Pouchet repeated the experiments of Schulze and Schwann with results diametrically opposed to theirs. He heaped experiment upon experiment, and argument upon argument, spicing with the sarcasm of the advocate the logic of the man of science. In