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FRANCESCO REDI
Francesco Redi was a naturalist, phisycian and poet from Toscana
He proved that the theory of spontaneous generation was false. Redi put a piece of meat in an open jar and another piece of the same meat in a closed jar. Flies were raised in the open jar, while nothing happened in the closed jar. With this experience, Redi showed that the white worms that appear in the flesh were actually larvae of flies that were born from the eggs that the flies leaved in the flesh. -
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LAZZARO SPALLANZANI
Spallanzani was a biologist and a Catholic priest. He was passionate of spontaneous regeneration of amphibian and reptile body parts, although he could not reach satisfactory conclusions, especially as he could not explain why the same did not happen to humans and other animals.
What he did was repeat Redi's experiment using bread instead of meat, with results very similar to Redi's. With Spallanzani it became clear that the worms that appeared in the flesh were actually fly larvae. -
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LOUIS PASTEUR
Pasteur's experiments served to demonstrate that spontaneous generation wasn't valid for microorganisms either. He used long-necked, curved S-shaped containers where placed a boiling broth inside to remove microorganisms. There was fluid in the elbow of the neck that prevented the entry of new microorganisms so the broth could be kept sterile indefinitely. If the neck of the container was broken then the microorganisms would reappear contaminating the broth.