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Aristotle Aristotle published a book by the name of "The History of Animals", which encompasses all previous assumptions made by philosophers and scientists. Aristotle believed that all nonliving things contained a certain vital energy called “pneuma”, which gave rise to living things. His organized theory of spontaneous generation withheld for 2000 years.
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500 BC ~ 1600 AD
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Anaximander Relief Photo His theory of creation and existence primarily served to enhance the understanding of cosmology, but was integrated into biology and explaining abiogenesis. Anaximander was the first to give a rough explanation for the existence of things. He believed that everything originated from an unquantifiable substance named Apeiron.
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Church After Aristotle had finalized his theory, the church believed that the bible’s phrases condone the theory of spontaneous generation. St. Albertus Magnus and his disciple St. Thomas Aquinas promoted the awareness of Aristotelianism amongst Christians. The belief promoted the understand that angels working cooperatively with the sun helped to create life on earth.
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1660 AD ~ 1860 AD
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Francesco Redi Francesco Redi published a book that openly disputed the theory of spontaneous generation. Using his maggot experiment, he was able to create many findings that were hard to notify the christian community. Nevertheless, his primary experimentation marks a milestone in history.
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Microscope Upon Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of microorganisms, the utilization of a microscope for microbial studies became essential in the examination of microoranisms. Microorganisms were never thought to have existed before.
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John NeedhamNeedham was a devoted roman catholic who strongly believed in the theory of spontaneous generation.At the time, it was common knowledge that boiling kills off microorganisms. He boils gravy and seals it in a flask, but microorganisms grow. This proves Redi wrong and the theory of spontaneous generation becomes the cynosure once more. Now, scientists have found out that the gravy was actually not boiled long enough to kill all the microorganisms.
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Lazarro SpallanzaniSpallanzani was convinced that Needham’s experiment contained many flaws. He inferred the possibility of bacteria entering the experiment apparatus between the time the broth stopped being boiled and when the flask was sealed. Lazzaro repeats Needham’s experiment, but makes the apparatus of the flask in a vacuum state. He removes all the air from the flask before sealing it, then boils it, no microorganism grows.
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Louis PasteurPasteur took on the challenge to recreate the experiments of both of his preceding scientists (Needham and Spallanzani). He made a swan-neck shaped flask so that airborne microbes would be prevented from affecting the broth. Although he left the flask open to air, the microbes did not form as airborne microbes did not interact with the broth directly. Hence, he proved the invalidity of spontaneous generation.
