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Francesco Redi
Francesco Redi was born in Italy on 1626, and died in 1687 also in Italy. He was a doctor, naturalist and fisiologist. He made the first step to prove the theory of Spontaneous Genration wrong by doing an experiment in 1668. He also studied the vibora's venom. -
Redi's Experiment
In that era it was thought that maggots appeared spontaneously in rotting meat, and to prove it wrong, Redi made an experiment. He put rotting meat into 3 different types of jars. The 1st group wasn't sealed at all so the flies could enter and put eggs. As a result the meat was consumed The 2nd group was sealed tightly and after some days there was only a little bit of meat left and no maggots. The 3rd group was covered with netting cloth and the maggots were in top of the jar and not in. -
John Needham
John Needham was an english catholic priest and biologist who was born in 1713 in England and died in 1781 in Belgium. He tried to confirm that spontaneous generation was true so he did an experiment to prove it, which later was improved by Spallazani. -
Lazzaro Spallazani
Lazzaro Spallazani was an Italian catholic priest, naturalist amd teacher of math and physics. He was borned in 1729 in italy and died also in Italy in 1799. He believed that spontaneous generation wasn't real so as all others did before he made an experiment to prove it. He got Needham's experiment and changed a little bit. -
Needham's Experiment
In 1745 Needham made an experiment to prove spontaneous generation correct. He heated broth to kill the present organisms, leaving the flasks open while heating the broth and then after the broth cooled he sealed the flasks. After some days he realized there were living microorganisms on the broth that weren't there when he sealed the flasks. He concluded that spontaneous generation could occur and that the air was essential for spontaneous generation. -
Spallazani's Experiment
Spallazani poured broth into a flask as Needham did, but while heating the broth he sealed the flask so there could be no time for the air to carry microorganisms from outside. When he opened the flask, he observed that differently from Needham's experiment there wasn't any living organism in the broth, but as he unsealed the flask opened he saw there were appearing microorganisms. Contradicting Needham, he concluded that spontaneous generation wasn't real. -
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was a french physician, mathematician, bacteriologist. He was born in France in 1822 and died in 1895 due to a cardiorespiratory arrest. In his prestigious life he made an experimented that let him finally confirm that spontaneous generation was wrong. -
Pasteur's Experiment (Part 1)
In 1864 Louis Pasteur made an experiment to confirm that spontaneous generation was fake. He designed different flaks with S-curved necks that were oriented downward. He first heated the broth to eliminate all type of microorganisms living on eat. Secondly, he left dust with bacteria in the middle of the S-curved neck and left it there. -
Pasteur's Experiment (Part 2)
After one year, he observed no life on the flasks. After that he decided to break the neck of the flasks or tilt them exposing them more to the air and after a few days he observed the appearence of living forms. He made a book named "Omne vivum ex vivo" in which he noted the conclusions. He concluded that the contamination came from life forms in the air. He also noted that "life only comes from life" And since then this is the strongest theory held.