The action of the two components studied separately proved to be not the same as when they worked in concert. This was conspicuously the case with the evolution of carbon dioxide, which proceeded with such violence as to make the research attended with considerable danger. It is known that the action of ferments may be checked by the inhibition of the products formed. Ward pointed out that while the use of these might be advantageous to the bacterium, their consequent removal might be equally so to the yeast. This established the important principle of symbiotic fermentation and gave it a rational explanation. On the morphological side Ward showed that the ginger-beer plant is comparable to a gelatinous lichen, and, having resolved it into its constituents, successfully reconstituted it.
The new conception threw a flood of light on many obscure points in fermentation generally, and it is not surprising that Ward's work at once attracted the attention of the brewing industry. It led him to an even more fertile suggestion, that of metabiosis. It was known that the finest wine is sometimes produced from mouldy grapes. He regarded this as a case of one organism preparing the way for another. He returned to the subject in a lecture given at the British Association at Dover in 1899 and pointed out that in the Japanese manufacture of Saké, an Aspergillus prepares the way for the yeast. He also showed that metabiosis played an important part in nitrification.
Fungi cannot draw their nutriment from solid materials without first profoundly modifying them. They accomplish a large part of their digestion, so to speak, externally to themselves. This constantly occupied Ward's mind. He insisted on the part played in the process by ferments. The hyphae of Stereum (Phil. Trans. 1898) delignify the walls of the wood elements of Aesculus layer by layer, and then consume the swollen cellulose. He failed, however, to isolate the ferment which does the work. Nor was he more fortunate with the little known fungus Onygena, which grows on horn, hoofs and hair, setting free ammonia as a final product (Phil. Trans. 1899). That there must be some hydrolysis of keratin can hardly be
