For the flask B, with air. ... ..1,970 grammes (30.4 grains). For
the flask A, without air ... 1,368 grammes [Footnote: This appears
to be a misprint for 1.638 grammes=25.3 grains.--D. C. R.].
The proportions were 1 of yeast to 76 of fermented sugar in the
first case, and 1 of yeast to 89 of fermented sugar in the
second.
From these facts the following consequences may be deduced:
1. The fermentable liquid (flask B), which since it had been in
contact with air, necessarily held air in solution, although not
to the point of saturation, inasmuch as it had been once boiled
to free it from all foreign germs, furnished a weight of yeast
sensibly greater than that yielded by the liquid which contained
no air at all (flask A) or, at least, which could only have
contained an exceedingly minute quantity.
2. This same slightly aerated fermentable liquid fermented much
more rapidly than the other. In eight or ten days it contained no
more sugar; while the other, after twenty days, still contained
an appreciable quantity.
Is this last fact to be explained by the greater quantity of
yeast formed in B? By no means. At first, when the air has access
to the liquid, much yeast is formed and little sugar disappears,
as we shall prove immediately; nevertheless the yeast formed in
contact with the air is more active than the other. Fermentation
is correlative first to the development of the globules, and then
to the continued life of those globules once formed. The more
oxygen these last globules have at their disposal during their
formation, the more vigorous, transparent, and turgescent, and,
as a consequence of this last quality, the more active they are
in decomposing sugar. We shall hereafter revert to these facts.
3. In the airless flask the proportion of yeast to sugar was
1/59; it was only 1/79 in the flask which had air at first.
The proportion that the weight of yeast bears to the weight of
the sugar is, therefore, variable, and this variation depends, to
a certain extent, upon the presence of air and the possibility of
oxygen being absorbed by the yeast. We shall presently show that
yeast possesses the power of absorbing that gas and emitting
carbonic acid, like ordinary fungi, that even oxygen may be
reckoned amongst the number of food-stuffs that may be
assimilated by this plant, and that this fixation of oxygen in
yeast, as well as the oxidations resulting from it, have the most
marked effect on the life of yeast, on the multiplication of its
cells, and on their activity as ferments acting upon sugar,
whether immediately or afterwards, apart from supplies of oxygen
or air.
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