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Nov 21, 2023 · Francesco Redi was born in Tuscany, Italy on February 18, 1626. In 1647, at the age of 21, Redi graduated with his doctoral degree in medicine and philosophy from the University of Pisa. After ...
- 4 min
- When did Francesco Redi contribute to the cell theory?In 1668, Redi conducted controlled experiments to disprove abiogenesis. His book called, 'Experiments on the Generation of Insects' dismissed the i...
- What did Francesco Redi do for the cell theory?Francesco Redi conducted a controlled experiment where he showed living organisms come from other living organisms. This worked, coupled with the w...
- What is Francesco Redi known for?Francesco Redi is known for his work on parasitology and experimental biology. Francesco's experiment with maggots helped develop the third tenant...
- Overview
- Spontaneous generation
- The death of spontaneous generation
- The origin of primordial life
If a species can develop only from a preexisting species, then how did life originate? Among the many philosophical and religious ideas advanced to answer that question, one of the most popular was the theory of spontaneous generation, according to which, as already mentioned, living organisms could originate from nonliving matter. With the increasing tempo of discovery during the 17th and 18th centuries, however, investigators began to examine more critically the Greek belief that flies and other small animals arose from the mud at the bottom of streams and ponds by spontaneous generation. Then, when Harvey announced his biological dictum ex ovo omnia (“everything comes from the egg”), it appeared that he had solved the problem, at least insofar as it pertained to flowering plants and the higher animals, all of which develop from an egg. But Leeuwenhoek’s subsequent disquieting discovery of animalcules demonstrated the existence of a densely populated but previously invisible world of organisms that had to be explained.
The Italian physician and poet Francesco Redi was one of the first to question the spontaneous origin of living things. Having observed the development of maggots and flies on decaying meat, Redi in 1668 devised a number of experiments, all pointing to the same conclusion: if flies are excluded from rotten meat, maggots do not develop. On meat exposed to air, however, eggs laid by flies develop into maggots. Nonetheless, in 1745 support for spontaneous generation was renewed with the publication of An Account of Some New Microscopical Discoveries by the English naturalist and Roman Catholic divine John Turberville Needham. Needham found that large numbers of organisms subsequently developed in prepared infusions of many different substances that had been exposed to intense heat in sealed tubes for 30 minutes. Assuming that such heat treatment must have killed any previous organisms, Needham explained the presence of the new population on the grounds of spontaneous generation. The experiments appeared irrefutable until the Italian physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani repeated them and obtained conflicting results. He published his findings around 1775, claiming that Needham had not heated his tubes long enough, nor had he sealed them in a satisfactory manner. Although Spallanzani’s results should have been convincing, Needham had the support of the influential French naturalist Buffon; hence, the matter of spontaneous generation remained unresolved.
If a species can develop only from a preexisting species, then how did life originate? Among the many philosophical and religious ideas advanced to answer that question, one of the most popular was the theory of spontaneous generation, according to which, as already mentioned, living organisms could originate from nonliving matter. With the increasing tempo of discovery during the 17th and 18th centuries, however, investigators began to examine more critically the Greek belief that flies and other small animals arose from the mud at the bottom of streams and ponds by spontaneous generation. Then, when Harvey announced his biological dictum ex ovo omnia (“everything comes from the egg”), it appeared that he had solved the problem, at least insofar as it pertained to flowering plants and the higher animals, all of which develop from an egg. But Leeuwenhoek’s subsequent disquieting discovery of animalcules demonstrated the existence of a densely populated but previously invisible world of organisms that had to be explained.
The Italian physician and poet Francesco Redi was one of the first to question the spontaneous origin of living things. Having observed the development of maggots and flies on decaying meat, Redi in 1668 devised a number of experiments, all pointing to the same conclusion: if flies are excluded from rotten meat, maggots do not develop. On meat exposed to air, however, eggs laid by flies develop into maggots. Nonetheless, in 1745 support for spontaneous generation was renewed with the publication of An Account of Some New Microscopical Discoveries by the English naturalist and Roman Catholic divine John Turberville Needham. Needham found that large numbers of organisms subsequently developed in prepared infusions of many different substances that had been exposed to intense heat in sealed tubes for 30 minutes. Assuming that such heat treatment must have killed any previous organisms, Needham explained the presence of the new population on the grounds of spontaneous generation. The experiments appeared irrefutable until the Italian physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani repeated them and obtained conflicting results. He published his findings around 1775, claiming that Needham had not heated his tubes long enough, nor had he sealed them in a satisfactory manner. Although Spallanzani’s results should have been convincing, Needham had the support of the influential French naturalist Buffon; hence, the matter of spontaneous generation remained unresolved.
After a number of further investigations had failed to solve the problem, the French Academy of Sciences offered a prize for research that would “throw new light on the question of spontaneous generation.” In response to that challenge, Louis Pasteur, who at that time was a chemist, subjected flasks containing a sugared yeast solution to a variety of conditions. Pasteur was able to demonstrate conclusively that any microorganisms that developed in suitable media came from microorganisms in the air, not from the air itself, as Needham had suggested. Support for Pasteur’s findings came in 1876 from the English physicist John Tyndall, who devised an apparatus to demonstrate that air had the ability to carry particulate matter. Because such matter in air reflects light when the air is illuminated under special conditions, Tyndall’s apparatus could be used to indicate when air was pure. Tyndall found that no organisms were produced when pure air was introduced into media capable of supporting the growth of microorganisms. It was those results, together with Pasteur’s findings, that put an end to the doctrine of spontaneous generation.
When Pasteur later showed that parent microorganisms generate only their own kind, he thereby established the study of microbiology. Moreover, he not only succeeded in convincing the scientific world that microbes are living creatures, which come from preexisting forms, but also showed them to be an immense and varied component of the organic world, a concept that was to have important implications for the science of ecology. Further, by isolating various species of bacteria and yeasts in different chemical media, Pasteur was able to demonstrate that they brought about chemical change in a characteristic and predictable way, thus making a unique contribution to the study of fermentation and to biochemistry.
In the 1920s the Russian biochemist Aleksandr Oparin and other scientists suggested that life may have come from nonliving matter under conditions that existed on primitive Earth, when the atmosphere consisted of the gases methane, ammonia, water vapour, and hydrogen. According to that concept, energy supplied by electrical storms and ultraviolet light may have broken down the atmospheric gases into their constituent elements, and organic molecules may have been formed when the elements recombined.
Some of those ideas have been verified by advances in geochemistry and molecular genetics; experimental efforts have succeeded in producing amino acids and proteinoids (primitive protein compounds) from gases that may have been present on Earth at its inception, and amino acids have been detected in rocks that are more than three billion years old. With improved techniques it may be possible to produce precursors of or actual self-replicating living matter from nonliving substances. But whether it is possible to create the actual living heterotrophic forms from which autotrophs supposedly developed remains to be seen.
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A key event in the conceptual development of modern biology was the publication of Francesco Redi’s (1626–1697) paper entitled “Experiments on the Generation of Insects” in 1668. He hypothesized that spontaneous generation did not occur. His hypothesis was that the organisms that appeared had developed from "seeds" deposited by adults.
Francesco Redi (1626-1697) was a scientist and writer of highest level. He spent his career at Medicean Court, where he developed a profound literary and philological knowledge, but specialising in the life sciences. Redi brought together erudition and a genuine experimental spirit, being the first to apply the experimental method to the life ...
PAULA GOTTDENKER. The Tuscan physician Francesco Redi (1626-1698) is often having struck the first blow against the doctrine of spontaneous tion, that is the idea that organisms could be generated from antecedents. Some commentators, however, hold that the time-honored belief in this form of generation did not yield under his attack; rather, it ...
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology - From Galen to Golgi: birth of the life sciences in Italy ... contribution to anatomy covered many aspects. ... in the seventeenth century, Francesco Redi 16 ...
Mar 1, 2014 · Historical narratives of the theory’s downfall generally give a three-stage account which begins in the seventeenth century with Francesco Redi and ends in the nineteenth with Louis Pasteur. This is a classic textbook story presenting the view of science as progress, with truth triumphing over false theories via controlled laboratory experiments.
