Yeast | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Amy E. Zelmer.

YEAST
by Thomas H. Huxley

I HAVE selected to-night the particular subject of Yeast for two
reasons--or, rather, I should say for three. In the first place, because it is
one of the simplest and the most familiar objects with which we are
acquainted. In the second place, because the facts and phenomena
which I have to describe are so simple that it is possible to put them
before you without the help of any of those pictures or diagrams which
are needed when matters are more complicated, and which, if I had to
refer to them here, would involve the necessity of my turning away
from you now and then, and thereby increasing very largely my
difficulty (already sufficiently great) in making myself heard. And
thirdly, I have chosen this subject because I know of no familiar
substance forming part of our every-day knowledge and experience, the
examination of which, with a little care, tends to open up such very
considerable issues as does this substance--yeast.
In the first place, I should like to call your attention to a fact with which
the whole of you are, to begin with, perfectly acquainted, I mean the
fact that any liquid containing sugar, any liquid which is formed by
pressing out the succulent parts of the fruits of plants, or a mixture of
honey and water, if left to itself for a short time, begins to undergo a
peculiar change. No matter how clear it might be at starting, yet after a
few hours, or at most a few days, if the temperature is high, this liquid
begins to be turbid, and by-and-by bubbles make their appearance in it,
and a sort of dirty-looking yellowish foam or scum collects at the
surface; while at the same time, by degrees, a similar kind of matter,
which we call the "lees," sinks to the bottom.
The quantity of this dirty-looking stuff, that we call the scum and the
lees, goes on increasing until it reaches a certain amount, and then it
stops; and by the time it stops, you find the liquid in which this matter
has been formed has become altered in its