Apart from the fact that the theory of spontaneous generation of living
organisms proved to be fallacious it also has produced some positive
effect. Its historic importance lies in the fact that it has rid the problem of the
origin of life of mystic and religious implications, thus attributing to it a
natural, down-to-earth approach.
The first successful stroke to the theory of spontaneous generation
(generatio spontanea) was dealt by the Italian physician and naturalist
Francesco Redi. In his remarkable work \u201cExperiments on the Generation of
Insects\u201d (Redi, 1668) he has proved that the white worms are not
spontaneously generated in meat but are developed from eggs laid by flies.
And if meat is protected from the access of flies which he had done, no worms
would appear.
Despite his successful experiments Redi could not fully free himself of
the self-generation concept.
He had admitted that in some cases self-generation could be obtained
(wood worms to engender from rotting
materials; the small worms in the oak to form from plant juices). Maybe,
owing to this fallacy of his, the theory of spontaneous generation of living
organisms could have been supported for one more century by authoritative
philosophers and naturalists. Save for R. Descartes this view was also
shared by G. Leibnitz (1646\u20141716), G. Buffon (1707\u20141788), C. Linnaeus
(1707\u20141778) for a some time, and others. The notorious Scottish naturalist
J. T. Needham (1749) has undertaken an experimental proof of the
\u201cspontaneous generation of microbes\u201d. His results have been subjected to
criticism by Lazzaro Spallanzani (1765, 1776) who proved his conclusions
wrong since he had not observed the conditions of total sterility.
The demise of the theory of spontaneous generation of the living
organisms has been achieved by Louis Pasteur (1860\u201463) who had
conducted brilliant in thought and precise in performance experiments in
his famous dispute with Felix Pouchet (1858\u201463). With the results from
these experiments Pasteur emerges as the final victor and is rewarded
the prize of the French Academy of Sciences especially established for
that purpose. He concluded his lecture held on April 7th 1864 in the
Sorbonne saying: \u201cNever will the doctrine of spontaneous generation
recover from the mortal blow of this simple experiment\u201d (cited by Vallery\u0002Radot, 1950).
He was acclaimed most uproaringly by the overcrowded
audience, thus his devotion and contribution to science met their due
recognition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apart from the fact that the theory of spontaneous generation of livingorganisms proved to be fallacious it also has produced some positiveeffect. Its historic importance lies in the fact that it has rid the problem of theorigin of life of mystic and religious implications, thus attributing to it anatural, down-to-earth approach.The first successful stroke to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310,"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cellandcelldivision.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}