LIEBIG, JUSTUS von - LOUIS PASTEUR. - THE CLASH OF GIANTS - THE LIEBIG-PASTEUR CONTROVERSY.

Sur la Fermentation et la Source de la Force Musculaire. Lu aux séances de l'Academie royale des Sciences de Munich, les 9 mai 1858 et 5 novembre 1869. (+) La Fermentation acétique. (+ Pasteur:) Note sur un Mémoire de M. Liebig, relatif aux Fermentations. (3 papers).

Paris, Victor Masson et Fils, 1871. (+) Paris, G. Masson, 1872. 8vo. 2 contemp. hcalf, raised bands, gilt spine. Light wear along edges. Small stamps on verso of titlepage. In: "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", 4e Series - Tome 23 a. 25. 480 pp. a. 1 folded engravedplate. + 576 pp. a. 1 folded engraved plate. (The entire volumes offered). Liebig's papers: pp. 1-49 a. pp. 194-212 (both in vol. 23). Pasteur's paper: pp. 145-151.

First appearance in French of Liebig's two papers on fermentation and first appearance of Pasteur's paper. Liebig's papers started a bitter controversy (after Liebig's death continued by Claude Bernard) as he claimed, that all ferments are chemical reactions and not vital processes. Pasteur, on the other hand, claimed that life is needed for fermentation.

"From 1865 to 1870, while Pasteur was preoccupied with the silk-worm problem, his theory of fermentation enjoyed increasing favor, especially abroad. What criticism did appear during the period failed to distract him from his centraltask. In 1871, hovever, the "Annales de chimie et de physique" published a French translation of a wide-ranging critique by Liebig (the papers offered), who had broken a long silence on the issues of the two lectures (1868, 1869). In a reply (the paper offered) of almost arrogant brevity, Pateur discussed only two aspects of Liebig's critique, both of which involved direct challenges to experimental claims made a decade beforee by Pasteur: (1) that pure yeast and a simple alcoholic fermentation could be produced in a medium free of organic nitrogen and (2) that acetic fermentation required the intervention of "Mycoderma aceti". OPasteur responded by challenging Liebig to submit the dispute to a commission of the Academie des Sciences. before this commission, Pasteur boldly predicted, he would prepare, in a medium free of organic nitrogen, as much beer yeast as Liebig might reasonably demand and would demonstrate the existance of "Mycoderma aceti" on the surface of the beechwood shavings used in the German methpd of acetification....Liebig died in 1873 without accepting Pasteur's challenge."(DSB X, ppp. 376 ff.). - Partington IV, pp. 307 ff.

The volumes contains other notable papers: BERTHELOT "Mémoire sur la force de poudre et des matieres explosives", pp. 223-273., JANSSEN: "Études sur les raies telluriques du spectre solaire", pp. 274-298, KEKULÉ, BOUSSINGAULT, STAS, WURTZ et al.

Order-nr.: 44232