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Jan Baptist Van Helmont
Helmont used experimental techniques and found recipes for mice and scorpions, like: a piece of soiled cloth and wheat for 21 days; basil in between two brick left in sunlight, etc. -
William Harvey
William Harvey dissected a deer to show that there was no visible embryo during the first month. -
First Microscope
The very first microscope, the Cornelis Drebbel Microscope, was invented in Netherlands in the 1620s. -
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke looked at a thin slice of cork through a microscope and discovered cells. -
Francesco Redi
Francesco Redi experimented to test if maggots arose spontaneously from rotting meat. He put meat in each of two different jars while he kept one open and the over covered with a cloth. The one kept open had maggots. He used his experiments to back up the preexistence theory, which sustained that living things originated from parents. He also suspected that flies landing on meat laid eggs that grew into maggots. -
Pier Antonio Micheli
Pier Antonio Micheli observed and analyzed that when fungal spores were placed on slices of melon, the same type of fungi was produced. The fungi did not arise from spontaneous generation. -
John Needham
John Needham experimented on boiled broths to show that when sealed right after boiling, the broths would cloud and the spontaneous generation would stay. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani
Lazzaro Spallanzani modified Needham’s experiment and demonstrated that processes involved basing on new structures on existing complex structures rather than dead structures, and concluded that Needham’s heating of the bottle did not kill everything inside. -
Alcoholic Fermentation
Charles Cagniard de la Tour (physicist) and Theodor Schwann (one of the founders of cell theory) discovered yeast in alcoholic fermentation. Alcoholic fermentation is when microorganisms from yeast and other kinds of bacteria convert sugars in ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. It begins after glucose enters the cell and it is broken down into pyruvic acid which is converted to CO22, ethanol and energy for the cell. -
Cell Theory
Cell Theory states: all living organisms are mad of cells; cell is the basic unit of life; cells arise from pre-existing cells (modern: energy flow occurs within cells; DNA is passed on from cell to cell; all cells have the same basic chemical composition). Many scientists contributed to the cell theory, such as Matthias Schleiden, Theodor Schwann, Rudolf Virchow, etc. -
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur sorted out the question of spontaneous generation. He bent a long-neck-flask that prevented falling particles from reaching the broth while still allowing air to flow freely. -
John Tyndall
John Tyndall publishes his method for fractional sterilization that shows the existence of heat-resistant bacterial spores.
