Pearls & Parasites by Arthur Everett Shipley

Author:Arthur Everett Shipley [Shipley, Arthur Everett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-06T22:00:00+00:00

In 1862 Pasteur succeeded Senarmont as a member of the Academy of Sciences; and, it is interesting to note, he was presented by the mineralogical section. During this year he had interested himself in the manufacture of vinegar, which is extensively carried on in and around Orleans. He investigated the action of the Mycoderma aceti, the mould whose activity converts alcohol into acetic acid; and he taught the manufacturers the importance of pure cultures, showing them how, by a careful manipulation of the temperature, and by artificially sowing the fungus which effects the chemical change, the product they sought could be produced in a week or ten days, instead of requiring two or three months. This problem naturally led on to the acetous fermentation of wine, the cause of great loss to French wine exporters. Pasteur was able to demonstrate that the sourness of wine is caused by various foreign organisms, each of which causes a peculiar flavour to appear in the wine it attacks. The bouquet of wine is notoriously a delicate object, easily disturbed; and the question arose how to check the growth of the organisms without interfering with the bouquet. Pasteur solved it as he solved similar problems with regard to milk. He was able to show that after wine is properly oxygenated, if it be heated to a temperature of some 55° to 60° C. the acid-forming micro-organisms are destroyed, whilst the bouquet is unaffected. Perhaps one of Pasteur’s greatest triumphs was his success in demonstrating this to a representative assemblage of wine-tasters, notoriously a very opinionative class of people.

Pasteur’s researches on micro-organisms further had a profound influence on operative surgery. To the presence of bacteria is due many of the dangers which used to follow on operations. If precautions are taken to exclude the harmful germs much suffering and danger are avoided. It was about this date—namely, in the spring of 1865—that Dr. (now Lord) Lister, who nobly acknowledged the debt he owed to Pasteur, performed his first operations under antiseptic treatment at the Glasgow Infirmary. This date marks an epoch in the history of human suffering.

The chemist Dumas was about this time a member of the French Senate, and in 1865 was charged with the duty of reporting on the petition of some 3,500 ‘propriétaires des Départements séricicoles’ on an epidemic which had for some years been destroying the silkworms of Southern France. Dumas was a native of Alais, a town of the Département Gard, situated in the centre of the silkworm industry, where also the distinguished zoologist Quatrefages was born. Anything that affected Alais affected Dumas; and the epidemic was destroying the prosperity of his native town. The disease was indeed becoming serious. Already in 1849 the silkworms were sickening. The stage at which the symptoms appeared varied—sometimes the eggs were sterile; at other times the silkworms hatched out but to die. If they survived they became shiny; black spots showed themselves; the worms moved with difficulty, refused to eat, and perished; or,

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