Certain results of drying non-sporing bacteria in a charcoal liquid air vacuum

The following experiments were undertaken with the object of ascertaining whether non-sporing bacteria, driedin vacuo and keptin vacuo , would survive those dried in and kept in the air, or, on the contrary, whether they would die more rapidly. The action of sunlight and of heat was tested, moreover, upon bacteria driedin vacuo and keptin vacuo , with a view of discovering how far such agencies might be lethal upon dried bacteria, if the latter were supposed present in a free state in interplanetary space. In carrying out the work, we have had the invaluable advantage of Sir James Dewar's help, for the several methods of dryingin vacuo , by far the most efficient is that devised by him. This method is so well known to physicists that it will be enough to state here, that after the air of the vessel is exhausted by means of an air pump, the glass connection with the pump is sealed off in the blowpipe flame, and exhausted chamber is deprived of its remaining gases through a second outlet communicating with a bulb containing cocoanut charcoal (previously freed from gases), which is submerged and kept in a Dewar vacuum flask of liquid air. The use of mercury was avoided in producing the initial vacuum, in order to exclude the presence of mercury vapour, which might in various ways invalidate the results of the experiments.