Charlton Bastian tells
of using two solutions. One consisted of two or three drops of
dilute sodium silicate with eight drops of liquor fern pernitratis
to one ounce of distilled water. The other was composed of the same
amount of the silicate with six drops of dilute phosphoric acid and
six grains of ammonium phosphate. He filled sterilised tubes, sealed
them hermetically, and heated them to 125 or 145 degrees, Centigrade,
although 60 or 70 degrees would have killed any bacteria remaining
in them.
Next he exposed them to sunlight in a south window for from two to
four months. When the tubes were opened Dr. Bastian found organisms
in them which differed in no way from real bacteria. They grew and
multiplied. He contends that he has proved the possibility of
spontaneous generation of life.
Then there were the experiments of John Butler Burke of Cambridge,
who claimed that he had developed "radiobes" in tubes of sterilised
bouillon by means of radium emanations. Daniel Berthelot in France
last year announced that he had used the ultra-violet rays to
duplicate nature's own process of chlorophyll assimilation. He has
broken up carbon dioxide and water-vapour in the air in precisely
the same way that the green cells of plants do it.
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