Note 97 — Chapter V · The Alcoholic Ferments.

M. Béchamp (Comptes rendus, November 18th, 1872) asserts that the air has no direct influence on the production of ferment or on the process of alcoholic fermentation. That experienced chemist deduces this erroneous assertion from experiments on sweetened water, to which bunches of grapes, petals of corn-poppies and petals of robinia pseudo-acacia had been added. As may be seen in our “Studies on Wine” (p. 7, 1st edition, 1866), these experiments conducted by M. Béchamp in 1872 were merely a reproduction of those made long before with vine leaves, petals of elder-flowers, leaves of sorrel, &c., by the Marquis de Bullion, Fabroni, and other experimentalists. M. Béchamp has modified his later experiments by not adding the bunches of grapes, leaves, &c., to the sweetened water before having introduced carbonic acid gas into the liquid. Fermentation having still taken place in spite of this change, M. Béchamp wrongly concluded that air has no direct influence on the production of yeast on an alcoholic fermentation. The introduction of the carbonic acid gas could not remove all the air imparted to the sweetened water by the objects placed in it, and it was this air which remained adhering to these objects that permitted the production of fermentation. We may avail ourselves of the opportunity here presented to add that, in this same Note of November, 1872, M. Béchamp commences by making various assertions concerning the forms assumed by cells of the alcoholic ferment of the grape when in process of fermentation. This question was discussed by us ten years before, and our conclusions supported by sketches, in a Note which appeared in the Bulletin de la Société chimique de Paris, for 1862.