Rome and Jerusalem (1862)

Dumeril, Milne-Edwards, Regnault, Decaisne and Claude Bernard, was commissioned. — The note reads in the original text:

In a first Note that we had the honor of submitting to the Institute, in its session of March 26, 1860, we endeavored to demonstrate that snow, by sweeping the atmosphere, carries with it only a somehow insignificant number of germs. This poverty of the air in terms of living germs already established a presumption in favor of the opinion that attributes the appearance of microscopic plants or microzoa, whose origin has remained so obscure, to the disintegration of organic molecules, or rather to the transformation of these molecules themselves. We believe we can directly support this with new facts that we submit to the judgment of the Academy.

Our experiments were conducted on a spontaneously decomposed hen's egg. First, after twelve hours, we saw the formation of the proligère pellicle, so well described by M. Pouchet and by M. Pinan. This pellicle, composed solely of the granules of the vitellus, reduced to a state of extreme fineness, was succeeded by a living population of Monas cupusculum and Bacterium termo, which rapidly traversed the microscope slide in all directions. Several days passed during which this population grew in a somewhat frightening manner; then it ceased to be, and its debris, by packing one upon the other, gave rise to a membrane, within which, by virtue of a sort of vital crystallization, appeared these spherical clusters of granules, spontaneous eggs (Pouchet), which, in turn, produced Kolpoda cucullus. These, at first immobile, and imprisoned on all sides within the membrane in question,

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