Note 127 — Chapter VI · THE PHYSIOLOGICAL THEORY OF FERMENTATION.

Those gentlemen express themselves thus: “In a note presented to the Academy in November, 1872, we published certain experiments which showed that carbonic acid and alcohol may be produced in fruits kept in a closed vessel, out of contact with atmospheric oxygen, without our being able to discover alcoholic ferment in the interior of those fruits.

“M. Pasteur, as a logical deduction from the principles which he has established in connection with the theory of fermentation, considers that the formation of alcohol may be attributed to the fact that the physical and chemical processes of life in the cells of fruit continue under new conditions, in a manner similar to those of the cells of ferment. Experiments, continued during 1872, 1873, and 1874, on different fruits, have furnished results all of which seem to us to harmonize with this proposition, and to establish it on a firm basis of proof.” Comptes rendus, t. lxxix., p. 949, 1874.