L. A. Stimson

“ Any agent which destroys the life of the bacteria, or prevents their multiplication, breaks this circle and renders a cure possible.
The influence of bacteria in fermentation is still undecided, but, for the sake of completeness, the different opinions should be mentioned. It is admitted by all chemists that these or similar organisms are invariably present in some fermentations—Bacterium termo, or rod bacterium, in putrefaction, and the yeast-plant in alcoholic fermentation, for example ”

“ History shows that spontaneous generation has often been invoked to explain an unknown mode of production of life, and has always disappeared before advancing knowledge, and, now that it has been overthrown when claimed for the lowest forms of microscopical life, it probably will not reappear until an advance in the means of observation shall have revealed to observers still lower and more minute forms. ”

“ LIVING organisms, microscopical in size, of the simplest, most elementary nature, and moving freely in different liquids, have been known to observers for nearly two hundred years. Scientific classification and description were long impossible, on account of the meagre facilities furnished by the microscopes of the last century; but, during the last fifty years, the means of observation have been so much improved, and the number of observers has been so great, that the advance in our knowledge of microscopical bodies compares favorably with that in other branches of science. ”

“ In the air, bacteria, or bacteria-spores, exist, but only in moderate numbers, for exposure to the air often fails to cause cloudiness of artificial nutritive liquids, when the plants that existed in them before-hand have been destroyed by heat; and sometimes portions of meat taken from a recently-killed animal, with all possible precautions to prevent inoculation with bacteria through the instruments employed, and placed in open vases that have been washed in alcohol and then scorched in a hot flame, remain for days and weeks without putrefying. ”

“ Rapid multiplication in the living body is prevented in part by the motion of the blood, and in part by the vital energy of the tissues, which is so vigorous that these plants cannot check it, and thereby obtain the nourishment needed for their own growth; but, when life has ceased, or when an abnormal condition of the tissues has been brought about by any cause, then rapid growth begins, and we have, in the one case, putrefaction ”

“ The study of these plants is rendered very difficult by their extreme smallness, and all attempts to cultivate them under the microscope, in "wet chambers," have failed to disclose the secrets of their growth, on account of the abnormal conditions in which they are necessarily placed. A considerable depth of liquid seems to be essential, as do also the presence of air, and protection against shocks or jars, and movement of the liquid ”

“ To-day they are known to be plants, and the different varieties are supposed by many observers to represent only different periods of development. Robin asserted several years ago that the ordinary rod bacteria could develop into the long thread bacteria, and even into the long filaments of leptothrix found so constantly in the mouth ”

“ The first series showed that inoculation of a rabbit with a drop of blood, putrefied in the open air, rarely killed the animal, and that sometimes ten or fifteen drops were necessary. The second series comprised successive inoculations of blood from one septicæmic animal to the next, and showed that 1⁄10 to 1⁄100 of a drop was sufficient to kill the fifth, 1⁄10000 1⁄20000 would kill the tenth, while, for the twenty-fifth, the one-ten-trillionth part of a drop was fatal. ”