[Footnote: Read before the French Academy of Sciences, May 3, 1880. Published in Comptes rendus, de l'Academie des Sciences, xc., pp. 1033-44.]

When I began the studies now occupying my attention, [Footnote: In 1880. Especially engaged in the study of chicken cholera and the attenuation of virulence--Translator.] I was attempting to extend the germ theory to certain common diseases. I do not know when I can return to that work. Therefore in my desire to see it carried on by others, I take the liberty of presenting it to the public in its present condition.

I. Furuncles

In May, 1879, one of the workers in my laboratory had a number of furuncles, appearing at short intervals, sometimes on one part of the body and sometimes on another. Constantly impressed with the thought of the immense part played by microscopic organisms in Nature, I queried whether the pus in the furuncles might not contain one of these organisms whose presence, development, and chance transportation here and there in the tissues after entrance would produce a local inflammation, and pus formation, and might explain the recurrence of the illness during a longer or shorter time. It was easy enough to subject this thought to the test of experiment.

Table of Contents

1. Author's Preface - Preface
2. Section I - On the Relations Existing Between Oxygen and Yeast
   1. Part I
   2. Part II
3. Section II - Fermentation in Saccharine Fruits Immersed in Carbonic Acid Gas
4. Section III - Reply to Certain Critical Observations of the German Naturalists, Oscar Brefeld and Moritz Traube
5. Section IV - Fermentation of Dextro-Tartrate of Lime
6. Section V - Another Example of Life Without Air-Fermentation of Lactate of Lime
7. Section VI - Reply to the Critical Observations of Liebig, Published in 1870.
   1. Part I
   2. Part II
8. Source