The Blood and its Third Element

Antoine Bechamp

• Publisher: A Distant Mirror
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780648859482
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biowissenschaften
• Subtopic: Zellbiologie

What Dr. Béchamp is describing is a foundational concept.

According to his experiments and observations, these tiny particles he named 'microzymas' have an active role in sustaining and also in terminating life. Using the syllable '-zyme' (now also used in the word 'enzyme') to indicate this principle of causing 'fermentation' (activity) Béchamp searched for and found the same particles and activity even in limestone, apparently from the ancient shelled creatures whose bodies were incorporated into the stone. They still retained their activity. The only factor that stopped these particles was heat.

As Dr. Béchamp expressed it, "Life is the prey of life": i.e. as the organizing life-principle of a complex body ceases to operate, the microzymas take up their role of breaking it down and returning its elements to nature to be taken up by other life forms.

Unfortunately Pasteur first tried to steal Béchamp's work, then when he objected, Pasteur set out to use his political clout to destroy the career and reputation of the great French doctor. This is why we don't hear much about this alternative school of science.

A complete history of this scientific and political conflict was written early in the 20th century, by a woman doing meticulous research into the historical records of the French Academy of Science. Please see Bechamp or Pasteur?: A Lost Chapter in the History of Biology by Ethel Hume. Her book is another must-read for grasping the significance of this concept and why certain interests wanted it deleted from the scientific record.

The same discovery of tiny active particles was repeated in the 20th century, first by Royal Rife using a very complex microscope to observe the particles changing into four different types. Later, working independently and with a different powerful microscope of his own invention, the French scientist Gaston Naessens observed these particles morph into sixteen different forms including bacterial and fungal. The significance of this is that what we think of as pathogens are not necessarily 'infectious' (or 'exogenous', or from outside), but can be 'endogenous' (from within).

Christopher Bird's detailed account of this concept which has been named "pleomorphism" - and which is still being attacked by the chemical-based medical authorities - is in his very instructive book The Persecution and Trial of Gaston Naessens: The True Story of the Efforts to Suppress an Alternative Treatment for Cancer, AIDS, and Other Immunologically Based Diseases.

Like Ethel Hume, the late Christopher Bird was fluent in French, and attended the French-language trial in Quebec. A version of this story in French is titled Le Galilée du microscope" (Galileo of the Microscope). In reference to the infamous behaviour of Galileo's critics who refused to look into his telescope, the critics of Naessens refused to look through this powerful microscope that could resolve ima

Author’s Preface / 1

“There is nothing but what ought to be.”
–Galileo

“Nothing is created, nothing is lost.”
–Lavoisier

“Nothing is the prey of death; all things are the prey of life.”
–The author

AN HISTORIAN of the founders of modern astronomy recently related that the philosopher Cleanthus, three millennia before our era, wished to prosecute Aristarchus for blasphemy – for having believed that the earth moved, and having dared to say that the sun was the immovable centre of the universe. Two thousand years later, human reason having remained stationary, the wish of Cleanthus was realized. Galileo was accused of blasphemy and impiety for having, like Copernicus and following Aristarchus, maintained the same truth; a tribunal condemned his writings, and forced him to carry out a recantation which his conscience denied.

The following is the judgement of the historian upon this event:

“Never perhaps has the generous detestation of the public conscience for intolerance shone forth more strongly than around the name of Galileo.

The narrative of his misfortunes, exaggerated like a holy legend, has affirmed, while avenging him, the triumph of the truths for which he suffered; the scandal of his condemnation will forever vex in their pride those who would oppose force to reason; and the righteous severity of opinion will preserve its inconvenient remembrance as an eternal reproach thrown in their teeth to confound them.”

The “righteous severity of the judgement” which preserves the inconvenient memory of the sufferings of Galileo, it is well to mention, is that of the scholarly and learned members of Academies whereof the author forms part. It is agreed; yes, intolerance is odious and hateful, and the situation of Galileo was particularly horrible. He was forced to go to church and pronounce with a loud voice the abjuration dictated to him.

“I, Galileo, in the seventieth year of my age, on my knees before your Eminences, having before my eyes the holy gospels, which I touch with my own hands, I abjure, I curse, I detest, the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.”

There is no more atrocious torture than this brutal violence against the conscience of a man. It is the greatest abuse of force and pride when we know that it was the priests of Jesus Christ who perpetrated it.

The theologians of the holy office were not competent to judge the astronomer Galileo, yet in their ignorance they undertook to proscribe an opinion which differed from their own as being erroneous and contrary to the holy Scriptures, which, said the Popes, “were dictated by the mouth of God himself.” In truth, what did they know about it? Assuredly it is distressing to observe how long human reason can remain at the same point.

It is then interesting to know whether the lesson taught by the condemnation of Galileo has been properly learned, and if three centuries later “the righteous severity of the judgement against those who would still resist the power of reason” would be able to protect those who labour disinterestedly for the triumph of the truth. Have those who, for the public, are the authoritative judges of the value of the discoveries of others become less intolerant, or at least more impartial, less prompt to pronounce against opinions which they do not share, and less anxious to deny facts than to test them?

And if the lesson has not been learned, it is relevant to ask whether it is “human reason” which must be held responsible; if it might not instead be “pettifogging” ratiocination, the abuse of reasoning warped by passion and too often by the personal interest which overcomes private conscience and leads the public astray.

The history of a discussion wherein chemistry and physiology were intimately involved, and which occupied the second half of the 19th century, is well suited to show that human nature has not changed since the time of Cleanthus, and that there always exist people ready to associate themselves together to contradict or insult the unfortunate wretch who has devised some new theory, based upon new facts, which would compel them to reform their arguments and abandon their prejudices.

This work upon the blood, which I present at last to the learned public, is the culmination of a body of work on ferments and fermentation, spontaneous generation, albuminoid substances, organization, physiology and general pathology which I have pursued without cease since 1854, at the same time with other researches of pure chemistry more or less directly related to them, and, it must be added, in the midst of a thousand difficulties raised up by relentless opponents from all sides, especially from where I least expected them.

To solve some very delicate problems I had to create new methods of research and of physiological, chemical and anatomical analysis. Ever since 1857, these researches have been directed by a precise design to a determined end: the enunciation of a new doctrine regarding organization and life.

It led to the microzymian theory of living organization, which has led to the discovery of the true nature of blood through that of its third anatomical element, and, finally, to a rational, natural explanation of the phenomenon of the coagulation of the blood.

But the microzymian theory, which is to biology what the Lavoisierian theory of matter is to chemistry, and which is founded on the discovery of the microzymas – living organisms of an unsuspected category – has been attacked at its core, by denying the very existence of the microzymas.

Since this was so, if the assertion that the microzymian theory of the living organization gives to biology a base as solid as does the Lavoisierian theory to chemistry be deemed imprudent, well, I choose to commit this imprudence, and to be imprudent to the end, and to struggle against a current of opinion which is as violent, as will be seen, as it is artificial.

It was the boldest of those who deny the existence of the microzymas who wrote:

“Whenever it can be done, it is useful to point out the connection of new facts with earlier facts of the same order. Nothing is more satisfying to the mind than to be able to follow a discovery from its origin to its latest development.” 1

That is very well and fine, especially since the author took good care not to follow this wise precept; let us ascend then to the sources.

Two centuries after Galileo, we were still in the Aristotelian hypothesis regarding matter, but reinforced by the alchemical hypothesis of transmutation and the Stahlian one of phlogiston.It was readily conceded that matter could of itself become living matter, animated, such as it is in plants and animals; thus it was that spontaneous generation was still generally accepted.

Charles Bonnet himself said that organization was the most excellent modification of matter; nevertheless that learned naturalist and philosopher attempted to oppose spontaneous generation by imagining in turn the hypothesis of encapsulation and that of pre-existing germs universally diffused, whereof Spallanzani made use to refute the experiments and conclusions of the sponteparist Needham.

On the other hand, to sustain Needham, Buffon invented the hypothesis of organic molecules, not less universally diffused, whose substance, distinct from common matter, called ‘raw matter’, helped to explain the growth of plants and animals, as well as spontaneous generation.2

Fermentations and ferments were very simply explained. Macquer, in 1772, regarded it as certain that vegetable and animal matters, abstracted from living organisms, under certain conditions of the presence of water and of contact (at least momentarily) with the air and of temperature, become altered and ferment, becoming putrid in producing the ferment.

And according to the same principles it was said that water could transmute itself into earth, the earth into a poplar, and that the blood begets itself by the transmutation of flesh into the flowing liquor.

Such, in a few words, was the condition of science upon these questions before the advent of Lavoisier. In the Lavoisierian theory there is no matter other than that of simple bodies, which are heavy, indestructible by the means at our disposal, and always reappearing the same, not withstanding all the vicissitudes of their various combinations among themselves and the changes of states or allotropic modifications they might undergo. No transmutations and no phlogistication to explain the phenomena.

In this theory, matter is only mineral, simple bodies being essentially mineral. There is no living or animal matter, no matter essentially organic.

That which, long after the time of Lavoisier, chemists have called organic matters are only innumerable combinations in the various proportions which carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen can form, often with other simple bodies at the same time—sulphur, phosphorus, iron, etc – carbon being always present – so that what is called organic matter in modern chemistry is only various combinations of carbon with the simple bodies mentioned.

In fact, Lavoisier, after his demonstration that water did not become transmuted into earth, nor earth into plants, asserted clearly that plants draw their food from the air, as was verified later. He even asserted that animals obtained the materials for their nutrition from plants, thus demonstrating that plants effected the synthesis of the substance without which animals could not exist. Even respiration was only a common phenomenon of oxidation.

The substance of plants and animals being only combinations of carbon with hydrogen and oxygen, with the addition of nitrogen for animals, it is very interesting to recall what Lavoisier thought of the putrefaction of these substances and of fermentation.

Like everybody, he knew that the juice of grapes or apples enters into fermentation of itself to produce wine or cider, and he wrote the following equation:

grape = must = carbonic acid + alcohol

To demonstrate this, he reduced the experiment to the employment of sugar, which he called a vegetable oxide, and of water and a ferment. The following is his account of the experiment:

“To ferment sugar, it must first be dissolved in about four parts of water. But water and sugar, no matter what proportions are employed, will not ferment alone, and equilibrium will persist between the principles (the simple bodies) of this combination if it is not broken by some means.
A little yeast is sufficient to produce this effect and to give the first movement to the fermentation; it then continues of itself to the end. The effects of vinous fermentation reduced themselves to separating the sugar into two portions, to oxygenize the one at the expense of the other to produce carbonic acid of it; to deoxygenize the other in favour of the former to make alcohol of it; so that if it were possible to recombine the alcohol and carbonic acid, the sugar would be reformed.”

It is thus clear that Lavoisier, instead of the equation regarding the must, could have written:

sugar = carbonic acid + alcohol

Lavoisier intended to give elsewhere an account of the effects of yeast and of ferments in general, which he was prevented from doing. But it can be seen from his Treatise upon Elementary Chemistry, published in 1788, that he had established that yeast is a quarternary nitrogenised body, and that that which remained of it at the end of the fermentation contained less nitrogen, and that besides the alcohol, a little acetic acid was formed. Lavoisier also found that after distillation there remained a fixed residue representing about 4% of the sugar. We shall see later the importance of these remarks.

It might thereafter have been anticipated that Lavoisier should explain the phenomena of the putrid fermentation of vegetable and animal substances “as operating by virtue of very complicated affinities” between the constituted principles of these substances (the simple bodies), which in this operation cease to be in equilibrium so as to be constituted into other compounds.

Bichat, who died in 1802 at the age of 31, had been much struck by the results of the labours of Lavoisier. He could not accept a living matter constituted of pure chemical compounds whereof the simple elements are the constituent principles. He imagined, then, that the only living things in a living being are the organs composed of the tissues, of which he distinguished 21 as elementary anatomical elements, as the elementary bodies are chemical elements. Such was the first influence of the Lavoisierian theory upon physiological anatomy; it was thus that in 1806 in the third edition of his Philosophie Chimique, Fourcroy said:

“Only the tissue of living plants, only their vegetating organs, can form the matters extracted from them, and no instrument of art can imitate the compositions which are prepared in the organized machines of plants.”

Let us bear in mind that Bichat had been led by the Lavoisierian theory of matter to lay down a new principle of physiology. As Galileo had laid down the metaphysical principle “nothing is but what ought to be”, Dumas drew from the chapter on fermentation of Lavoisier’s treatise the following principle, which is also a necessary one: “nothing is created, nothing is lost.”

We have above rapidly sketched the state of the relations of chemistry and physiology as well as the state of the subject of fermentations at the beginning of the nineteenth century; we will now see what they were at the commencement of the second half of that century, in about 1856.

*

The chemists, thanks to direct analytical methods which were more and more perfected, had isolated a great number of incomplex compounds, acids, alkaloids, neutral or having diverse functions, from vegetable and animal substances. Those incomplex compounds were more and more exactly specified under the name of proximate principles of plants and of animals, nitrogenised ternaries and quarternaries.

Among the nitrogenised proximate principles, a number of them were distinguished as soluble or insoluble, and also uncrystallisable, such as the albumin of the white of egg and of the serum of blood, caseum (later called casein) of milk, the fibrin of the blood and that of the muscles, the gelatine of the bones, the gluten of wheat, the albumin of the juices of plants, etc. In time, the similarity of their composition and of certain of their common properties with the albumin of the white of egg led to these matters being formed into the groups of the albuminoid matters.

Lavoisier knew these albuminoid matters only in so far as they were nitrogenised animal matters.

Now after the discovery of gluten, of vegetable albumen, and nitrogenised quarternaries like beer yeast, it was admitted that they were the ferment of vinous fermentation. Then, generalising, it came to be thought that albumin, the albuminoids in general, became or were directly the ferment, while the ternary proximate principles – such as cane sugar, grape sugar, milk sugar, the other sugars, amylaceous matter, inulin, gum, mannite, etc – were called fermentescible matter.

Matters had reached this point when in about 1836, Cagniard de Latour, resuming the study of beer yeast3 and of its multiplication during the fermentation which produces beer, regarded it as organized and living, decomposing the sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid by an effect of its vegetation.

That was a conception as original as that of Bichat. It is not because ...