[Footnote 1: "Annales de Chimie," 1810.]
On the other hand, Schwann, Schroeder and Dusch, and Pasteur, have amply proved that air may be allowed to have free access to beer-wort, without exciting fermentation, if only efficient precautions are taken to prevent the entry of particles of yeast along with the air.
Thus, the truth that the fermentation of a simple solution of sugar in water depends upon the presence of yeast, rests upon an unassailable foundation; and the inquiry into the exact nature of the substance which possesses such a wonderful chemical influence becomes profoundly interesting.
The first step towards the solution of this problem was made two centuries ago by the patient and painstaking Dutch naturalist, Leeuwenhoek, who in the year 1680 wrote thus:—
"Saepissimo examinavi fermentum cerevisiae, semperque hoc ex globulis per materiam pellucidam fluitantibus, quam cerevisiam esse censui, constare observavi: vidi etiam evidentissime, unumquemque hujus fermenti globulum denuo ex sex distinctis globullis constare, accurate eidem quantitate et formae, cui globulis sanguinis nostri, respondentibus.
"Verum talis mini de horum origine et formatione conceptus formabam; globulis nempe ex quibus farina Tritici, Hordei, Avenae, Fagotritici, se constat aquae calore dissolvi et aquae commisceri; hac, vero aqua, quam cerevisiam vocare licet, refrigescente, multos ex minimis particulis in cerevisia coadunari, et hoc pacto efficere particulam sive globulum, quae sexta pars est globuli faecis, et iterum sex ex hisce globulis conjungi."[1]
[Footnote 1: Leeuwenhoek, "Arcana Naturae Detecta." Ed. Nov., 1721.]
Thus Leeuwenhoek discovered that yeast consists of globules floating in a fluid; but he thought that they were merely the starchy particles of the grain from which the wort was made, re-arranged. He discovered the fact that yeast had a definite structure, but not the meaning of the fact. A century and a half elapsed, and the investigation of yeast was recommenced almost simultaneously by Cagniard de la Tour in France, and by Schwann and Kützing in Germany. The French observer was the first to publish his results; and the subject received at his hands and at those of his colleague, the botanist Turpin, full and satisfactory investigation.
The main conclusions at which they arrived are these. The globular, or oval, corpuscles which float so thickly in the yeast as to make it muddy, though the largest are not more than one two-thousandth of an inch in diameter, and the smallest may measure less than one seven-thousandth of an inch, are living organisms. They multiply with great rapidity, by giving off minute buds, which soon attain the size of their parent, and then either become detached or remain united, forming the compound globules of which Leeuwenhoek speaks, though the constancy of their arrangement in sixes existed only in the worthy Dutchman's imagination.
It was very soon made out that these yeast organisms, to which Turpin gave the name of Torula cerevisiae, were more nearly allied to the lower Fungi than to anything else. Indeed Turpin, and subsequently Berkeley and Hoffmann, believed that they had traced the development of the Torula into the well-known and very common mould—the Penicillium glaucum. Other observers have not succeeded in verifying these statements; and my own observations lead me to believe, that while the connection between Torula and the moulds is a very close one, it is of a different nature from that which has been supposed. I have never been able to trace the development of Torula into a true mould; but it is quite easy to prove that species of true mould, such as Penicillium, when sown in an appropriate nidus, such as a solution of tartrate of ammonia and yeast-ash, in water, with or without sugar, give rise to Torulae, similar in all respects to T. cerevisiae, except that they are, on the average, smaller. Moreover, Bail has observed the development of a Torula larger than T. cerevisiae, from a Mucor, a mould allied to Penicillium.