"I do not believe
with Lavoisier," he says, "that all the carbonic acid formed proceeds
from the sugar. How, in that case, could we conceive the action of the
ferment on it? I think that the first portions of the acid are due
to a combination of the carbon of the ferment with the oxygen of the
sugar, and that it is by carrying off a portion of oxygen from
the last that the ferment causes the fermentation to commence--the
equilibrium between the principles of the sugar being disturbed, they
combine afresh to form carbonic acid and alcohol."
The three views here before us may be familiarly exemplified by
supposing the sugar to be a card-house. According to Stahl, the
ferment is somebody who knocks the table, and shakes the card-house
down; according to Fabroni, the ferment takes out some cards, but puts
others in their places; according to Thenard, the ferment simply takes
a card out of the bottom story, the result of which is that all the
others fall.
As chemistry advanced, facts came to light which put a new face upon
Stahl's hypothesis, and gave it a safer foundation than it previously
possessed. The general nature of these phenomena may be thus
stated:--A body, A, without giving to, or taking from, another
body, B, any material particles, causes B to decompose into other
substances, C, D, E, the sum of the weights of which is equal to the
weight of B, which decomposes.
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