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Updated: May 24, 2025
Here the vibrios are dead and disappear. In the deeper layers, on the other hand, towards the bottom of this centimeter of septic fluid we suppose to be under observation, the vibrios continue to multiply by fission protected from the action of oxygen by those that have perished above them: little by little they pass over to the condition of germ corpuscles with the gradual disappearance of the thread forms.
The filaments that were at rest had the same aspect as these last, with the exception that they appeared punctuate, as though composed of a series of granules arranged in irregular order. No doubt these were vibrios in which vital action had ceased, exhausted specimens which we may compare with the old granular ferment of beer, whilst those in motion may be compared with young and vigorous yeast.
Indeed, the swarming vibrios were bound to remain there, the tartrate of lime being still more insoluble in water saturated with carbonate of lime than it is in pure water. A supply of carbonaceous food, at all events, was absolutely wanting in the bulk of the liquid. Every day we continued to collect and analyze the total amount of gas disengaged.
Need we add that this assertion is based on no substantial foundation? The cells belonging to the grains of barley, or their albuminous contents, never do produce cells of alcoholic ferment, or of lactic ferment, or butyric vibrios.
The movements and fissiparous multiplication of the vibrios may thus be seen in all their beauty, and it is indeed a most interesting sight. We may now continue our account of the fermentation which we were studying when we made this last digression.
We have already said that we believe that they are nothing but the ordinary vibrios of putrefaction, reduced to a state of extreme tenuity by the special conditions of nutrition involved in the fermentable medium used; in a word, we think that the fermentation in question might be called putrefaction of tartrate of lime.
We have not made any direct experiments upon this subject; but we should not be surprised to find that, so far from hindering, air may, under such circumstances, facilitate the propagation of the vibrios and accelerate fermentation. This is exactly what happens in the case of yeast.
It would be easy enough to determine this point by growing the vibrios of such fermentation in media adapted to the production of the ordinary forms of vibrio; but this is an experiment which we have not ourselves tried. One word more on the subject of these curious beings. In a great many of them there appears to be something like a clear spot, a kind of bead, at one of their extremities.
If the yeast sown in the non-aerated fermentable liquid is in the least degree impure, especially if we use sweetened yeast-water, we may be sure that alcoholic fermentation will soon cease, if, indeed, it ever commences, and that accessory fermentations will go on. The vibrios of butyric fermentation, for instance, will propagate with remarkable facility under these circumstances.
If a difference of action in certain reagents, in ammonia, for example, were sufficient to determine the limits of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, might we not argue that there must be a very great and natural difference between moulds and bacteria, inasmuch as the presence of a small quantity of acid in the nutritive medium facilitates the growth and propagation of the former, whilst it is able to prevent the life of bacteria and vibrios?
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