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350 BCE
THE THEORY OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION IV a.C.
This theory was first proposed comprehensively by Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, in his book "On the Generation of Animals." This theory wanted to explain where life comes from and the seemingly sudden appearance of living organisms such as rats, scorpions or maggots.. -
THE REDI'S EXPERIMENT
Francesco Redi carried out “The Redi experiment, which consisted of putting meat in three different jars: one without covering it with anything. Another with a stopper, and the last one covered with a cloth.
Finally, he showed that insects are not born by spontaneous generation. -
FRANCESCO REDI
was a Tuscan naturalist, physician, and poet. He carried out numerous investigations on various worms (making him considered the father of helminthology), parasitic animals and snake venom. -
NEEDHAM'S EXPERIMENT
John Needham carried out this experiment, which consisted of *boiling a broth made with vegetable or animal matter, with the aim of killing existing microbes, and then sealing the container. A few days later, he found that the brother was cloudy. And he observed that a drop contained hundreds of microscopic lives. -
SPALLANZANI'S EXPERIMENT
Lazzaro Spallanzani conducted many experiments with hot broth. He poured the broth into flasks, sealed them, and heated them long enough until no microorganisms remained. Over time, the vials were free of microorganisms, but once Spallanzani opened them, they grew rapidly in the vials. Finally, Spallanzani concluded that spontaneous generation was false and that the microorganisms came from polluted air. -
JOHN NEEDHAM
Was an English biologist and Roman Catholic priest. He was a defender of the theory of spontaneous generation and did many experiments in which he prepared meat and vegetable broths. The truth is that he put them in containers covered by cork stoppers (stoppers that did not close completely well), without realizing that this could allow microorganisms to enter, which his final conclusions were not correct. -
LAZZARO SPALLANZANI
He was an Italian Catholic priest, biologist, and physiologist who conducted important studies on** bodily functions*, **animal reproduction, and **animal echolocation*. He studied law at the University of Bologna, at the request of his father, but quickly devoted himself to science, specifically natural philosophy and mathematics. -
PASTEUR'S TEST
Pasteur used 2 swan neck flasks and in each of them he put equal amounts of meat broth, boiling them to eliminate possible microorganisms present in the broth. After waiting a while, he saw that the results of the experiment determined that none of them had the presence of life. With this, he demonstrated that organisms do not come from the theory of spontaneous generation. At the time, that hypothesis was ruled out. -
LOUIS PASTEUR
He was a French chemist and microbiologist, known for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which bears his name.