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Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from non-living matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas , could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh.
Spallanzani's first scientific work was in 1765 Saggio di osservazioni microscopiche concernenti il sistema della generazione de' signori di Needham, e Buffon (Essay on microscopic observations regarding the generation system of Messrs. Needham and Buffon) which was the first systematic rebuttal of the theory of the spontaneous generation. [3]
Doctor Redi. The son of Gregorio Redi and Cecilia de Ghinci, Francesco Redi was born in Arezzo on 18 February 1626. His father was a renowned physician at Florence.After schooling with the Jesuits, Francesco Redi attended the University of Pisa from where he obtained his doctoral degrees in medicine and philosophy in 1647, at the age of 21. [4]
Notable contributors to the theory include Justus Von Liebig and Louis Pasteur, the latter of whom developed a purely microbial basis for the fermentation process based on his experiments. Pasteur's work on fermentation later led to his development of the germ theory of disease, which put the concept of spontaneous generation to rest. [1]
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. Traditional religion attributed the origin of life to deities who created the natural world. Spontaneous generation, the first naturalistic theory of abiogenesis, goes back to Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophy, and continued to have support in Western scholarship until the 19th century. [15]
Spontaneous generation – a principle regarding the spontaneous generation of complex life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace and everyday occurrence, as distinguished from univocal generation, or reproduction from parent(s).
This led to Hooke suggesting that spontaneous generation, from either natural or artificial heat, was the cause. Since this was an old Aristotelian theory still accepted at the time, others did not reject it and was not disproved until Leeuwenhoek later discovered that generation was achieved otherwise. [4]
From here, is where the study of the origin of life branched. Those who accepted Pasteur's rejection of spontaneous generation began to develop the theory that under (unknown) conditions on a primitive Earth, life must have gradually evolved from organic material. This theory became known as abiogenesis, and is the currently accepted one. On ...