The Microscope. Its History, Construction, and Application 15th ed.: Being a familiar introduction to the use of the instrument, and the study of microscopical scienceHogg, Jabez
History
The Microscope. Its History, Construction, and Application 15th ed.: Being a familiar introduction to the use of the instrument, and the study of microscopical science
Hogg, Jabez
Microscopy; Natural history
“Furthermore, the particular flavour and peculiar odours of cheeses,
as Camembert, Stilton, and Roquefort, have to be obtained, and this is
secured, for instance, by cultivating a certain fungus, Penicillium, on
bread, and purposely adding it to Roquefort. This is found to destroy
the lactic and other acids, and so enables certain bacteria in the
cheese to set to work and further change the medium; whereas in another
kind of cheese the object is to prevent this fungus paving the way for
these bacteria. Another kind of bacillus has been discovered which
gives a peculiar clover aroma to certain cheeses.
“It is thought that more definite results will be obtained by the
investigation of the manufacture of the vegetable cheeses of China
and Japan, which are made by exposing the beans of the leguminous
plant, _Glycine_--termed soja-beans--to bacterial fermentations in
warm cellars with or without certain mould-fungi. Several kinds of
bean-cheeses are made in this way, known by special names. They
all depend upon the peculiar decompositions of the tissues of the
cotyledons of the soja-beans, which contain 35 to 40 per cent. of
proteids and quantities of fatty matter. The softened beans are first
rendered mouldy, and the interpenetrating hyphæ render the contents
accessible to certain bacteria, which peptonise and otherwise alter
them. There is the further question of the manufacture of vinegar
by fermentation, of the preparation of soy from a brine extract of
mouldy and fermented soja-beans, of bread-making, and other equally
interesting manufactures.”
Results of De Bary’s Investigations in Parasitism.
“When the idea of parasitism was rendered definite by the fundamental
distinction drawn by De Bary between a _parasite_ and a _saprophyte_,
it soon became evident that some further distinction must be made
between _obligate facultative_ parasites and saprophytes respectively.
De Bary, when he proposed these terms for adoption, was clearly alive
to the existence of transitions which we now know to be numerous
and so gradual in character that we can no longer define any such
physiological groups. Twenty years ago penicillium and mucor would have
been regarded as _saprophytes_ of the most obligate type, but we now
know that under certain circumstances these fungi can become parasites,
and the borderland between facultative parasites and saprophytes on the
one hand, and between the former and true parasites on the other, can
no longer be recognised.”
In 1866 the germ of an idea was sown which has taken root and extended.
De Bary pointed out that in the case of lichens we have either a fungus
parasite on an algæ, or else certain organisms hitherto accepted as
algæ are merely incomplete forms.
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