Abstract
PROF. TYNDALL'S exceedingly interesting article in No. 20 of NATURE seems to me to leave unexplained a fact very familiar to naturalists. It is well known that collections of natural history, say a Herbarium or an Entomological cabinet, will, if left undisturbed for a number of years, and unpoisoned, become infested with animal life, chiefly Acari and larvæ of Coleoptera; and that the surest way of preventing such attacks is thorough ventilation. Now if the floating matter in the air settles so readily after only a few days' stillness, as Prof. Tyndall's experiments seem to indicate, and does not even enter into an uncorked flask, it is out of the question that it can penetrate through the keyholes or chinks of our cabinets. Setting aside the theory of spontaneous generation, we are then forced to the conclusion that this life must arise from germs already existing in the specimens when they are preserved, or in the very limited amount of atmosphere originally confined in the cabinet. Is either of these explanations tenable? A strong argument against the former alternative seems presented by the fact that, as far as I am aware, the same species of Acarus infests plants in a Herbarium brought from the most widely diverse localities, an inland meadow or the seashore, the plains of England or the Alps of Switzerland. Can any of your physiological readers throw light on this subject?
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S., F. Dust and Germs of Life. Nature 1, 583 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/001583b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/001583b0
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