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Updated: May 24, 2025
In a fermentation of glycerine in a mineral medium the glycerine was fermenting under the influence of butyric vibrios after we had determined the, we may say, exclusive presence of lenticular vibrios, with refractive corpuscles, we observed the fermentation, which for some unknown reason had been very languid, suddenly become extremely active, but now through the influence of the ordinary vibrios.
It is really a small matter that one more ferment should be placed in a list of exceptions to the generality of living beings, for whom there is a rigid law in their vital economy which requires for continued life a continuous respiration, a continuous supply of free oxygen. Why, for instance, has Dr. Brefeld omitted the facts bearing on the life of the vibrios of butyric fermentation?
Thus we have systematically employed the vaguest nomenclature, such as mucors, torulae, bacteria, and vibrios.
If fresh proofs of this important proposition were necessary, they might be found in the following observations, from which it may be inferred that atmospheric oxygen is capable of suddenly checking a fermentation produced by butyric vibrios, and rendering them absolutely motionless, so that it cannot be necessary to enable them to live.
It is a question whether differences in the aspect and nature of vibrios, which depend upon their more or less advanced age, or are occasioned by the influence of certain conditions on the medium in which they propagate, do not bring about corresponding changes in the course of the fermentation and the nature of its products.
We analyzed the gas immediately, and found that, allowing for the carbonic acid and hydrogen, it did not contain more than 14.2 per cent. of oxygen, which corresponds to an absorption of 6.6 cc., or of 3.3 cc. Lastly, we again established connection by an india- rubber tube between the flasks, after having seen by microscopical examination that the movements of the vibrios were very languid.
Breaking off with a file the exit-tube at the point where the neck began to narrow off, we took some of the deposit from the bottom by means of a long straight piece of tubing, in order to bring it under microscopical examination. A crowd of these long vibrios were to be seen creeping slowly along, with a sinuous movement, showing three, four, or even five flexures.
We may remark that as there was a somewhat putrid odour from the deposit in which the vibrios swarmed, the action must have been one of reduction, and no doubt to this fact was due the greyish coloration of the deposit.
From a consideration of all the facts detailed in this section we can have no hesitation in concluding that, on the one hand, in cases of butyric fermentation, the vibrios which abound in them and constitute their ferment, live without air or free oxygen; and that, on the other hand, the presence of gaseous oxygen operates prejudicially against the movements and activity of those vibrios.
On the fifth day a few bubbles, rising from the bottom of the vessels, at long intervals, betokened the commencement of butyric fermentation, a fact, moreover, confirmed by the microscope, in the appearance of the vibrios of this fermentation in specimens of the liquid taken from the bottom of the vessels, the middle of its mass, and even in the layer on the surface that was swarming with bacteria.
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