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322 BCE
Aristotle Explained Spontaneous Generation by his Observation
Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and scientist, has first came up with the idea of spontaneous generation. Based on his observations, he claimed that some animals spring from their parents while others were generated spontaneously. -
1 CE
Vitruvius supported the idea of Spontaneous Generation
Vitruvius, a Roman Architect, supported Aristotle's idea by claiming rooms facing the side without enough sunlight can generate bookworms. -
Jan Baptist van Helmont
Helmont was one of the first scientists who attempted to prove spontaneous generation using experimental techniques. He tried to prove the existence of spontaneous generation by measuring certain mass of things after time, and had came up with a recipe of making mice. -
Francesco Redi's proves SG doesn't exist using proper experiment
Francesco Redi, an Italian physician, proved maggots don't exist by doing a proper experiment using sealed and opened wide-mouth jars. He proved successfully that larger organisms could not be produced by spontaneous generation. -
John Needham conducted experiment to support spontaneous generation
John Needham, a British naturalist stated that there were a "life force" inside inorganic substances such as air and oxygen, which allows spontaneous generation to occur. He supported his claim by an experiment which he put broth into different types of jars. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani proves the importance of sterilisation
Lazzaro Spallanzani did Needham's experimentation in various ways, including boiling soup to different degrees, and dealing the jars in different ways. He found that if the broth were cooked for long enough and sealed completely, bacterias will not grow; whereas in other cases, there were bacteria growing in there. -
Louis Pasteur's experimentation
The argument was finally set to rest in 1859 by Louis Pasteur's experiment. He made two swan-necked flasks that only allowed air to come in but not the bacterias and microorganisms, and put broth into them. He then broke the top of one of them after several days, using it as the controlled group. After a few days, the controlled sample had bacterias grown in it, whereas the other one doesn't. This proves that microorganisms were not generated from air, but from other microorganisms in the air.
