Author: New Sydenham Society

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-01-20

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 9780483475557

Excerpt from A Biennial Retrospect of Medicine, Surgery, and Their Allied Sciences, for 1869-70 But if researches like these furnish information of the existence of an extensive and, till recently, unknown wealth of animal life in the abysses of the ocean, Prof. Tyndall, in a lecture on dust and haze, de livered at the Royal has shown that particles which are undoubtedly organic, and may possibly prove to be the germs of low types of animals and vegetables, are not less abundantly distributed through the air - a discovery that must obviously have an important bearing on the subject Of spontaneous generation, which has recently, from the experiments of Dr. Charlton Bastian and the address of Prof. Huxley to the British Association at Liverpool, attracted so much attention. That the particles floating in all air that has not long been at perfect rest are really organic is shown by the fact that they are destroyed by heat, as is evidenced by transmitting an electric beam through a tube before and after it has been exposed to the flame of a spirit lamp. In the former case the track of the beam is marked by the reflection from the surfaces of these particles, whilst in the latter the track is undiscernible in consequence of their destruction. Dr. Tyn dall points out the fallacy that underlies at least one of M. Pouchet's experiments, from his neglecting the precaution to ascertain that his vessels were optically empty, whilst, on the other hand, he shows that the non-development of organisms in some Of M. Pasteur's experi ments, under otherwise favorable circumstances, was probably due to the quiescence of the air in which his flasks were placed, and the con sequent subsidence of all such floating organic matter. Certainly, no future experiments on this subject will be regarded as satisfactory unless careful provision has been made against this source of error. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.