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Francesco Redi
Francesco Redi was an Italian physician and scientist born on February 19, 1626, in Arezzo, Italy, and died on March 1, 1697, in Pisa, Italy. He is recognized as one of the pioneers of experimental biology and for his contribution to the refutation of the theory of spontaneous generation. -
Francesco Redi (Experiment)
Redi went on to demonstrate that dead maggots or flies would not generate new flies when placed on rotting meat in a sealed jar, whereas live maggots or flies would. This disproved both the existence of some essential component in once-living organisms, and the necessity of fresh air to generate life. -
Needham’s Rebuttal
John Needham was an English naturalist and Catholic priest . He is best known for his work on the theory of spontaneous generation, which was a prevailing belief at the time.
Needham initially trained as a Jesuit priest and later pursued a career in natural history. In the mid-18th century, he conducted a series of experiments aimed at testing the idea of spontaneous generation. Needham believed that living organisms could arise from non-living matter under certain conditions -
Lazzaro Spallanzani
Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799), an Italian priest, did not agree with Needham’s conclusions, however, and performed hundreds of carefully executed experiments using heated broth. -
John Needham (Experiment)
John Needham conducted an experiment: he boiled meat broth to destroy preexisting organisms and placed it in a container that was not properly sealed, as according to his theory, air was needed for this process to occur. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani (Experiment)
Spallanzani poured broth into flasks and sealed them. Next, he boiled the flasks for a long time, to kill present microorganisms.
After some time, the broth did not have any trace of life. However, once he unsealed the flask, microorganisms rapidly grew in the broth.
Spallanzani concluded that spontaneous generation was false and microbes came from contaminated air. -
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which was named after him. -
Louis Pasteur (Experiment)
Louis Pasteur's pasteurization experiment illustrates the fact that the spoilage of liquid was caused by particles in the air rather than the air itself. These experiments were important pieces of evidence supporting the idea of germ theory of disease.