Experiments & Contemplations

...although I applied great effort to see this coagulation of the globules, I never happened to succeed. However, I imagined their origin and formation in this way: that the globules from which the flour of Wheat, Barley, Oats, Buckwheat, etc. consists, are dissolved by the heat of the water and united with the water; and as this water—which may be called beer original: "cerevisiam"—cools down, many of the smallest particles in the beer coagulate, and in this way form a particle or globule, which is the sixth part of a yeast globule yeast globule Leeuwenhoek's term for a yeast cell. He believed, based on his early observations, that each cell was a cluster of six smaller spheres., and again, six of these globules are joined together. To place this connection before my own eyes, I took six wax globules and joined them together, as can be seen in Fig. 1. and I arranged

Three separate clusters of spheres, labeled collectively as fig: 1. Each cluster consists of six small spheres arranged together. Above each of the three clusters is the number '1.'

and depicted them so that each one could be seen. Furthermore, I rolled these joined globules in my hands in such a way that they acquired a shape similar to Fig. 2. For I imagined that what I was doing here by rolling them between my hands to compress the wax globules happens equally through the agitation of the beer in compressing the yeast globules, and in this way the yeast globule is perfected. However, let no one persuade themselves that I have seen the yeast globules separated by their own circumferences That is, seeing the individual boundaries of the six internal spheres clearly. as depicted here in Fig. 2. For quite often these six globules appear to me as if they were enclosed in a single little bubble original: "bullulæ" — this likely refers to the cell wall or membrane of the yeast cell appearing as a single outer boundary.. For when I had placed the yeast in pure water—since the beer was too viscous and thick—and had allowed these globules to roll around the bottom,

A single cluster of spheres labeled fig: 2., where the spheres are pressed tightly together to form a larger, more unified spherical shape.

those six globules that constitute the yeast globule were not separated from one another. These observations appeared as clearly to me as if we were seeing a small...