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Some of the most curious facts are to be found in connection with an observation, the correlative and inverse of the foregoing, on the ordinary aerobian bacteria.
Hence we are forced to regard them as a distinct species; and so it is possible that there may likewise be aerobian and anaerobian vibrios without any transformation of the one into the other. The question has been raised whether vibrios, especially those which we have shown to be the ferment of butyric and many other fermentations, are in their nature, animal or vegetable. M. Ch.
We must not forget, however, that aerobian torulae and anaerobian ferments present an example of organisms apparently identical, in which, however, we have not yet been able to discover any ties of a common origin.
It may be readily understood how, in their state of aerobian life, the alcoholic ferments have failed to attract attention. These ferments are only cultivated out of contract with air, at the bottom of liquids which soon become saturated with carbonic acid gas.
Ferments, therefore, only possess in a higher degree a character which belongs to many common moulds, if not to all, and which they share, probably, more or less, with all living cells, namely the power of living either an aerobian or anaerobian life, according to the conditions under which they are placed.
Another equally striking proof of the truth of this theory is the fact previously demonstrated that the ordinary moulds assume the character of a ferment when compelled to live without air, or with quantities of air too scant to permit of their organs having around them as much of that element as is necessary for their life as aerobian plants.
It is possible to produce a ready entrance and escape of pure air in the case of the double-necked flasks which we have so often employed in the course of this work, without having recourse to the continuous passage of a current of air. In this manner we may increase or prolong the fructification of fungoid growths, or the life of the aerobian ferments in our flasks.
We are strongly inclined to believe that these corpuscles have to do with a special mode of reproduction in the vibrios, common alike to the anaerobian forms which we are studying, and the ordinary aerobian forms in which also the corpuscles of which we are speaking may occur.
When surrounded with air, they live in their aerobian state and we have no fermentation; immersed immediately afterwards in carbonic acid gas, they now assume their anaerobian state, and at once begin to act upon the sugar in the manner of ferments, and emit heat.
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