MIMM 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Lazzaro Spallanzani, Francesco Redi, Beer Engine
13 Dec 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Spontaneous generation: recall that in 1665, francesco redi showed that fly larvae can only develop in meat that the fly can reach, he claimed that his experiment disproved spontaneous generation. Supporters of spontaneous generation suggested that maybe spontaneous generation requires air. In 1859, the french academy of science sponsored a high profile competition to either prove or disprove the theory of spontaneous generation. He performed another experiment with these flasks in which dust would come down and get stuck in the vent. If the broth didn"t touch the dust, no growth would take place and the liquid would remain sterile for many years. However, if he tilted the system such that the broth touched the dust, microorg would start to grow. In this diagram, we can see that they even have bunsen burners being used to sterilise the curved tubes through which air can freely pass. Fracastoro (1478-1553) suggested that invisible organisms cause disease.
