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100
3rd century CE philosophers
According to Hippolytus of Rome: Anaximander believed everything rose out of the 'unbound' (the elements of nature), and that people were formed in 'the wet' when the sun hit. He also believed the first forms were different than the ones now.
Anaximenes, a student of Anaximander, believed air imparted life. Empedodes did trials, testing that successful species had to have the right combination of parts, otherwise they'd fail to reproduce. Anaxagoras believed plant / animals seeds were in the air -
200
ARISTOTLE (300 BC)
In books "History of Animals" and "On the Generation of Animals":
living things could come from non living things because they had pneuma, a "vital heat" that creatures needed in addition to the right proportions and the 5 elements of nature. Rather than putrefaction, 'sweet' element of water was the source of life. Also, the forms depended on their source, e.g. clams from sand and oysters from slime. -
Jan 1, 1054
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION IN CHRISTIANITY
Augustine of Hippo citing biblical passages: “let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life” (genesis 1:20). The fall of the Roman Empire in 5th century to the East West Schism in 1054 caused the influence of Greek science to drop. New descriptions were made, even though the spontaneous generation was still ongoing. A Dutch biologist and microscopist Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) rejected this theory because he thought of it as impious, irreligious. -
Jan 1, 1580
Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580-1644)
A Flemish chemist, physiologist, and physician, this man thought:
the willow trees grew and the soil beneath it did not because the tree absorbed water fromth ground.
His notes have 'a recipe for mice' (soiled cloth, wheat for 21 days) and another one for scorpions. -
William Harvey (1587-1657)
Originally, Aristotle believed that the embryo was created fromcoagulation in the uterus. However, Harvey disproved this by dissecting a deer. There was no visible embroy in the first month (came from invisible eggs), and he also wrote a litte about biogenesis in his book, "Omnia Ex Ovo" (everything from eggs) -
Francesco Redi
Francesco Redi, an Italian physician, naturalist, biologist, and poet, did some experiments including meat in a variety of sealed, open, and partially covered jars. He tried various materials to test what the factors of spontaneous generation were, including ‘fine naples veil.' As stated in a letter from John Ray in 1671 to members of the Royal Society of London, Redi was a great inflence. -
Pier Antonio Micheli
Catholic priest and noted Italian botanist: he noted that fungi did not comply with the spontaneous generation as the fungal spores he put on slices of melon and the fungi that appeared were of the same kind. As he tried with different fungal spores, it was evident that the spores were the influence, not the melon. -
John Needham
Boiled broths experiments - the first:
he thought that boling would kill all living things. Therefore, he tested by boiling. When the flask was sealed right after boiling, it would cloud, so he thought this supported the idea of the spontaneous generation. His peers even looked carefully at his work and the idea persisted with their agreement. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani
An Italian Catholic priest, biologist and physiologist, he modified Needhim's experiment in 1768 by excluding all possibility of contamination. He did not see growth and question edwhether air was essential in this process. Observations showed that careful scrutinizing could reveal that 'processes' involved: new structures based on existing complex structures, instead of appearing from something random like mud. -
Charles Cagniard de la Tour (physicist) + Theodor Schwann (one of the founders of cell theory)
They published their discovery of yeast appearing during alcohol fermentation by using microscopes on foam leftovers of beer procession. The fermentation did not work when air or pure oxygen were present but not yeast (so it depended on the yeast). This suggested the theory of airborne microorganisms, rather than the spontaneous generation. -
Louis Pasteur's
He used boiled meat broth in a flask with a long neck to prevent particles coming in - this remained free of any growth for a long time. When it was turned and vulnerable to particles that fall down the bends, the broth quickly became clouded. John Tyndall, who was a correspondant of Pastuer, also wanted to disprove the spontaneous generation, but had trouble with the confusing concept of microbial spores (as broth was boiled to sterilize, but some spores can surive it).
