An attempt has also been made to prove that we have contradicted
ourselves, inasmuch as in 1860 we published our opinion that
alcoholic fermentation can never occur without a simultaneous
occurrence of organization, development, and multiplication of
globules; or continued life, carried on from globules already
formed. [Footnote: PASTEUR, Memoire sur la fermentation
alcoolique, 1860: Annales de Chimie et de Physique. The word
globules is here used for cells. In our researches we have always
endeavoured to prevent any confusion of ideas. We stated at the
beginning of our Memoir of 1860 that: "We apply the term
alcoholic to that fermentation which sugar undergoes under the
influence of the ferment known as BEER YEAST." This is, the
fermentation which produces wine and all alcoholic beverages.
This, too, is regarded as the type for a host of similar
phenomena designated, by general usage, under the generic name of
fermentation, and qualified by the name of one of the essential
products of the special phenomenon under observation. Bearing in
mind this fact in reference to the nomenclature that we have
adopted it will be seen that the expression ALCOHOLIC
FERMENTATION cannot be applied to every phenomenon of
fermentation in which alcohol is produced, inasmuch as there may
be a number of phenomena having this character in common. If we
had not at starting defined that particular one amongst the
number of very distinct phenomena, which, to the exclusion of the
others, should bear the name of alcoholic fermentation, we should
inevitably have given rise to a confusion of language that would
soon pass from words to ideas, and tend to introduce unnecessary
complexity into researches which are already, in themselves,
sufficiently complex to necessitate the adoption of scrupulous
care to prevent their becoming still more involved. It seems to
us that any further doubt as to the meaning of the words
ALCOHOLIC FERMENTATION, and the sense in which they are employed,
is impossible, inasmuch as Lavoisier, Gay-Lussac, and Thenard
have applied this term to the fermentation of sugar by means of
beer yeast. It would be both dangerous and unprofitable to
discard the example set by these illustrious masters, to whom we
are indebted for our earliest knowledge of this subject.]
Nothing, however, can be truer than that opinion, and at the
present moment, after fifteen years of study devoted to the
subject since the publication to which we have referred, we need
no longer say, "we think," but instead, "we affirm," that it is
correct. It is, as a matter of fact, to alcoholic fermentation,
properly so called, that the charge to which we have referred
relates--to that fermentation which yields, besides alcohol,
carbonic acid, succinic acid, glycerine, volatile acids, and
other products. This fermentation undoubtedly requires the
presence of yeast--cells under the conditions that we have named.
Those who have contradicted us have fallen into the error of
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