The modes of origin of lowest organisms: including a discussion of the experiments of M. Pasteur

In Short

This text is an aggressive 1871 scientific monograph challenging Louis Pasteur’s famous conclusions on the origin of microscopic life. H. Charlton Bastian presents experimental evidence that primitive entities like Bacteria and Torulæ do not depend exclusively on atmospheric "germs" for their existence. Instead, he demonstrates that they can arise de novo from non-living chemical constituents—a process he terms Archebiosis—or transform from pre-existing cellular forms. The work remains an intriguing historical window into Victorian scientific debates, capturing a pivotal moment before Pasteur's germ theory became absolute biological orthodoxy.

The Story

The book opens with a detailed microscopic investigation into the basic nature and reproductive habits of the simplest living things. Bastian begins by re-evaluating how Bacteria and Torulæ (yeast-like organisms) multiply. Observing them under the microscope, he describes their simple division, or fission, noting that their movements often depend on subtle internal molecular changes rather than complex locomotory organs like cilia. He posits that these simple life-forms are not necessarily fixed, independent species. Instead, he suggests they represent transitional stages capable of evolving into higher fungal structures, such as Leptothrix filaments or complex lichens.

Having framed these organisms as flexible, rudimentary forms of life, Bastian advances his central argument: living matter can originate de novo from non-living materials through chemical re-arrangements, a mechanism he names Archebiosis. To substantiate this claim, he directly attacks Louis Pasteur’s prevailing theory that air is packed with a vast, omnipresent army of invisible living germs responsible for all fermentation and decay. Bastian presents counter-evidence using simple chemical solutions, such as ammonic tartrate and sodic phosphate. He notes that unboiled solutions readily grow Bacteria, while boiled solutions kept in loosely covered vessels can remain completely clear for weeks. If atmospheric germs were as ubiquitous and resilient as Pasteur claims, Bastian argues, these exposed, boiled solutions would inevitably become cloudy with life far more rapidly.

To settle the issue, Bastian establishes a crucial experimental baseline: determining the precise thermal death point of Bacteria. By heating infusions of hay, turnip, and chemical salts to specific temperatures—such as 140°F or 212°F—he demonstrates that Bacteria lose their capacity to multiply and are killed. Armed with this fact, he constructs airtight experimental setups. He boils various organic infusions and inorganic chemical solutions inside glass flasks for several minutes to destroy all pre-existing life and drive out air, sealing the vessels during ebullition to create a vacuum.

The climax of the argument comes through a long series of meticulously recorded trials. Flask after flask containing turnip or hay infusions, sometimes modified with cheese or carbolic acid, is subjected to heat and monitored in warm water baths over days and weeks. While many control fluids remain clear, others consistently yield swarms of active Bacteria, Vibriones, and Torula-cells upon unsealing and microscopic analysis—even after being heated far beyond the temperature required to kill all known living organisms. Bastian concludes that because pre-existing life was destroyed by ebullition and external air was excluded, the newly observed organisms must have synthesized directly from the non-living chemical components within the flasks, invalidating Pasteur's absolute claims.

How It Unfolds

Analyzing the lowest forms Bastian opens by examining the reproductive habits of Bacteria and Torulæ, showing how these simple entities multiply via internal molecular re-arrangements and fission. He argues that they are not permanently fixed species, but basic living forms capable of developing into larger fungal structures like Leptothrix.

Testing the atmosphere Turning to the atmosphere, Bastian challenges Pasteur’s belief in an ubiquitous ocean of airborne germs. He demonstrates that boiled chemical solutions remain clear for weeks when exposed to air, arguing that if living germs were truly everywhere in the air, contamination would occur almost instantly.

Establishing thermal death points Before conducting his primary experiments, Bastian determines the exact heat required to kill simple organisms. By exposing hay and turnip infusions to controlled temperatures up to 212°F, he confirms that heating fluid to boiling point completely destroys all living Bacteria and stops their multiplication.

Sealing the experimental flasks Bastian designs a rigorous experimental framework using glass flasks filled with organic infusions or salt solutions. He boils the liquids to destroy pre-existing life and drive out air, sealing the glass necks during ebullition to create sealed, sterile environments in vacuo.

Observing the emergence of life Monitoring dozens of sealed flasks in temperature-controlled water baths, Bastian tracks changes over days and weeks. Upon breaking the sealed glass, microscopic examination reveals living Bacteria, Vibriones, and Torulæ inside fluids that had been thoroughly boiled and isolated from external air.

Refuting Pasteur's doctrine Bastian synthesizes his experimental findings to conclude that living matter can synthesize de novo from non-living constituents through Archebiosis. He contends that Pasteur’s germ theory rests on unproven hypotheses and fails to account for life arising in properly heated, isolated solutions.

The People

• H. Charlton Bastian: The author and primary researcher, a British pathologist who seeks to prove empirically that life can generate de novo from non-living matter. Faced with established scientific opposition, he relies on rigorous laboratory trials with heated flasks to demonstrate that simple organisms appear without pre-existing airborne germs.
• Louis Pasteur: The renowned French chemist whose atmospheric germ theory serves as the chief antagonist to Bastian's work. Pasteur maintains that all fermentation and life in infusions originate strictly from solid living particles floating in the air, a doctrine Bastian systematically attempts to disprove.
• Professors Thomas Henry Huxley and John Tyndall: Prominent British scientific contemporaries who support Pasteur's germ theory. They stand as formidable intellectual opponents whose public statements and theoretical positions Bastian directly attempts to refute through his experimental data.
• Jeffries Wyman: An American researcher from Cambridge whose earlier experiments with large flasks and calcined air yielded positive results for spontaneous life. His findings provide Bastian with historical precedent and supportive data for his counter-arguments against European orthodoxy.

In Its Own Voice

"The living matter which is no longer able to exist round a single centre, re-arrangements itself around two centres,--as a result of which, fission occurs."

Context: Bastian explains the basic microscopic mechanism by which simple single-celled organisms divide to reproduce.

"If we find that an eminently inoculable fluid will remain for two or three weeks, or perhaps more, in contact with the air without becoming turbid, though it will always become turbid in two or three days if brought into contact with living Bacteria, what can we conclude, but that living Bacteria are not very common in the atmosphere?"

Context: The author questions the core premise of Pasteur's theory regarding the abundance of airborne germs.

"If Bacteria fail to multiply in a suitable fluid, and under suitable conditions, we have the best proof that can be obtained of their death."

Context: Bastian defines his standard for determining whether heating a fluid has successfully killed the organisms inside it.

What It's Really About

At its core, the book is an inquiry into the fundamental boundary between the living and non-living worlds. Bastian attempts to dismantle the rigid dogma that life can only spring from pre-existing life (omne vivum ex vivo). By reinterpreting fermentation and putrefaction not as processes driven exclusively by external invaders, but as natural chemical transformations inherent to complex organic molecules, he attempts to unify chemistry and biology. The argument pushes for a continuous view of nature where simple life is constantly coalescing from matter whenever environmental conditions permit. Beyond its biological thesis, the text is a study in scientific epistemology, debating what constitutes definitive proof when observing microscopic phenomena near the limits of nineteenth-century optical technology.

Why Read It Today

This volume appeals to readers interested in the history of science, the philosophy of biology, and Victorian intellectual debates. Rather than a dry theoretical treatise, reading Bastian offers the immediate, hands-on feel of a nineteenth-century laboratory notebook. The narrative momentum comes from the rhythm of experimental iteration—mixing turnip infusions, adding fractions of cheese or carbolic acid, heating glass tubes over flames, and peering through microscopes at languid Bacteria.

The prose is precise, formal, and transparently reasoned, though modern readers must navigate historical scientific terminology and detailed logs of numbered experiments. What stays with you is the sheer tenacity of a scientist standing on the wrong side of a historic scientific turning point. Seeing Bastian painstakingly construct what he believed was airtight proof for spontaneous generation provides a humbling, vivid reminder of how complex, contentious, and uncertain cutting-edge empirical truth felt before modern microbiology was settled.