Thus Lavoisier thought he had demonstrated that the carbonic acid and the alcohol which are produced by the process of fermentation, are equal in weight to the sugar which disappears; but the application of the more refined methods of modern chemistry to the investigation of the products of fermentation by Pasteur, in 1860, proved that this is not exactly true, and that there is a deficit of from 5 to 7 per cent of the sugar which is not covered by the alcohol and carbonic acid evolved.  The greater part of this deficit is accounted for by the discovery of two substances, glycerine and succinic acid, of the existence of which Lavoisier was unaware, in the fermented liquid.  But about 1-1/2 per cent. still remains to be made good.  According to Pasteur, it has been appropriated by the yeast, but the fact that such appropriation takes place cannot be said to be actually proved.

However this may be, there can be no doubt that the constituent elements of fully 98 per cent. of the sugar which has vanished during fermentation have simply undergone rearrangement; like the soldiers of a brigade, who at the word of command divide themselves into the independent regiments to which they belong.  The brigade is sugar, the regiments are carbonic acid, succinic acid, alcohol, and glycerine.

From the time of Fabroni, onwards, it has been admitted that the agent by which this surprising rearrangement of the particles of the sugar is effected is the yeast.  But the first thoroughly conclusive evidence of the necessity of yeast for the fermentation of sugar was furnished by Appert, whose method of preserving perishable articles of food excited so much attention in France at the beginning of this century.  Gay-Lussac, in his “Memoire sur la Fermentation,"[2] alludes to Appert’s method of preserving beer-wort unfermented for an indefinite time, by simply boiling the wort and closing the vessel in which the boiling fluid is contained, in such a way as thoroughly to exclude air; and he shows that, if a little yeast be introduced into such wort, after it has cooled, the wort at once begins to ferment, even though every precaution be taken to exclude air.  And this statement has since received full confirmation from Pasteur.

[Footnote 2:  Annales de Chimie, 1810.]

On the other hand, Schwann, Schroeder and Dutch, 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:—­