Lazzaro Spallanzani
Lazzaro Spallanzani
Born	January 10, 1729 (1729-01-10) Scandiano
Died	February 12, 1799 (1799-02-13) Pavia
Nationality	Italian
Fields	Biology
Known for	Interpreting digestion, saying that it is a process of chemical solution, and helping disprove the concept of spontaneous generation.

Lazzaro Spallanzani (10 January 1729 – 12 February 1799) was an Italian Catholic priest, biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and essentially discovered echolocation. His research of biogenesis paved the way for the investigations of Louis Pasteur.

Career[link]

Spallanzani was born in Scandiano in the modern province of Reggio Emilia and died in Pavia, Italy. He was educated at the Jesuit College and started to study law at the University of Bologna, which he gave up soon and turned to science. Here, his famous kinswoman, Laura Bassi, was professor of physics and it is to her influence that his scientific impulse has been usually attributed. With her he studied natural philosophy and mathematics, and gave also great attention to languages, both ancient and modern, but soon abandoned them.

In 1754, at the age of 25 he became professor of logic, metaphysics and Greek in the University of Reggio. In 1762 he was ordained as a priest, 1763 he was moved to Modena,^[1] where he continued to teach with great assiduity and success, but devoted his whole leisure to natural science. He declined many offers from other Italian universities and from St Petersburg until 1768, when he accepted the invitation of Maria Theresa to the chair of natural history in the University of Pavia, which was then being reorganized. He also became director of the museum, which he greatly enriched by the collections of his many journeys along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In June 1768 Spallanzani was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1775 was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.^[2]

In 1785 he was invited to Padua University, but to retain his services his sovereign doubled his salary and allowed him leave of absence for a visit to Turkey where he remained nearly a year and made many observations, among which may be noted those of a copper mine in Chalki and of an iron mine at Principi. His return home was almost a triumphal progress: at Vienna he was cordially received by Joseph II and on reaching Pavia he was met with acclamations outside the city gates by the students of the university. During the following year his students exceeded five hundred. His integrity in the management of the museum was called in question, but a judicial investigation speedily cleared his honour to the satisfaction even of his accusers.

In 1788 he visited Vesuvius and the volcanoes of the Lipari Islands and Sicily, and embodied the results of his researches in a large work (Viaggi alle due Sicilie ed in alcune parti dell'Appennino), published four years later.

He died from bladder cancer on the 12th of February 1799, in Pavia. After his death, his bladder was removed for study by his colleagues, after which it was placed on public display in a museum in Pavia, where it remains to this day.

His indefatigable exertions as a traveller, his skill and good fortune as a collector, his brilliance as a teacher and expositor, and his keenness as a controversialist no doubt aid largely in accounting for Spallanzani's exceptional fame among his contemporaries; his letters account for his close relationships with many famed scholars and philosophers, like Buffon, Lavoisier, and Voltaire. Yet greater qualities were by no means lacking. His life was one of incessant eager questioning of nature on all sides, and his many and varied works all bear the stamp of a fresh and original genius, capable of stating and solving problems in all departments of science—at one time finding the true explanation of stone skipping (formerly attributed to the elasticity of water) and at another helping to lay the foundations of our modern vulcanology and meteorology.

Discoveries[link]

The statue to Spallanzani in Scandiano has him examining a frog through a magnifying glass.

Plaque dedicated to Spallanzani in Portovenere, Italy

Spallanzani was a Catholic who researched the theory about the spontaneous generation of cellular life in 1768. His experiment suggested that microbes move through the air and that they could be killed through boiling. Critics of Spallazani's work argued his experiments destroyed the "life force" that was required for spontaneous generation to occur. His work paved the way for later research by Louis Pasteur, who defeated the theory of spontaneous generation. He also discovered and described animal (mammal) reproduction, showing that it requires both semen and an ovum. He was the first to perform in vitro fertilization, with frogs, and an artificial insemination, using a dog. Spallanzani showed that some animals, especially newts, can regenerate some parts of their body if injured or surgically removed.

Spallanzani is also famous for extensive experiments on the navigation in complete darkness by bats, where he concluded that bats use sound and their ears for navigation in total darkness (see animal echolocation). He was the pioneer of the original study of echolocation, though his study was limited to what he could observe. Later scientists moved onto studies of the sensory mechanisms and processing of this information.

His great work, however, is the Dissertationi di fisica animale e vegetale (2 vols, 1780). Here he first interpreted the process of digestion, which he proved to be no mere mechanical process of trituration - that is, of grinding up the food - but one of actual chemical solution, taking place primarily in the stomach, by the action of the gastric juice. He also carried out important researches on fertilization in animals (1780).

See also[link]

• Preformationism
• List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
• John Needham

References[link]

General

• Paul de Kruif, Microbe Hunters (2002 reprint) ISBN 139780156027779
• Nordenskiöld, E. P. 1935 [Spallanzani, L.] Hist. of Biol. 247-248
• Rostand, J. 1997, Lazzaro Spallanzani e le origini della biologia sperimentale, Torino, Einaudi.

Work on insects

• Conci, C. & Poggi, R. 1996 Iconography of Italian Entomologists, with essential biographical data. Mem. Soc. Ent. Ital. 75 159-382.
• Gibelli, V. 1971 L. Spallanzani. Pavia.
• Lhoste, J. 1987 Les entomologistes français. 1750-1950. INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique), Paris.
• Osborn, H. 1946 Fragments of Entomological History Including Some Personal Recollections of Men and Events. Columbus, Ohio, Published by the Author.
• Osborn, H. 1952 A Brief History of Entomology Including Time of Demosthenes and Aristotle to Modern Times with over Five Hundred Portraits.Columbus, Ohio, The Spahr & Glenn Company.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lazzaro Spallanzani

• Biography at the Catholic Encyclopedia
• Biography at the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Page describing, with pictures, some of Lazzaro Spallanzani's memories
• Museum of Lazzaro Spallanzani in Pavia
• Official site of "Centro Studi Lazzaro Spallanzani" (Scandiano)

Francesco Redi
Born	(1626-02-18)February 18, 1626 Arezzo, Italy
Died	March 1, 1697(1697-03-01) (aged 71) Pisa, Italy
Nationality	Tuscany
Fields	Medicine, Entomology
Institutions	Florence
Alma mater	University of Pisa
Known for	Experiments challenging spontaneous generation

Francesco Redi (February 18, 1626 – March 1, 1697) was an Italian physician, naturalist, and poet.

Biography[link]

The son of Gregorio Redi and Cecilia de Ghinci was born in Arezzo on February 18, 1626. After schooling with the Jesuits, he attended the University of Pisa. As a doctor, he became court physician to Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his successor, Cosimo III. His research earned himself membership in Accademia dei Lincei. He died in his sleep on March 1, 1697, and his remains were returned to Arezzo for interment.^[1][2]

Research[link]

He is most well known for his series of experiments, published in 1668 as Esperienze Intorno alla Generazione degl'Insetti (Experiments on the Generation of Insects), which is regarded as one of the first steps in refuting "spontaneous generation" - a theory also known as Aristotelian abiogenesis. At the time, prevailing wisdom was that maggots formed naturally from rotting meat.

In one experiment, Redi took six jars, which he divided in two groups of three: in the first jar of each group, he put an unknown object; in the second, a dead fish; in the last, a raw chunk of veal. Redi took the first group of three, and covered the tops with fine gauze so that only air could get into it. He left the other group of jars open. After several days, he saw maggots appear on the objects in the open jars, on which flies had been able to land, but not in the gauze-covered jars.

He continued his experiments by capturing the maggots and waiting for them to metamorphose, which they did, becoming flies. Also, when dead flies or maggots were put in sealed jars with dead animals or veal, no maggots appeared, but when the same thing was done with living flies, maggots did.

Achievements outside science[link]

As a poet, Redi's best known work is the dithyramb, "Bacco in Toscana" ("Bacchus in Tuscany"). He was admitted to two literary societies: Academy of Arcadia and Accademia della Crusca.^[1]

A crater on Mars was named in his honor.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Francesco Redi entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia
• Experiments on the Generation of Insects, translation of the 5th edition (1688)
• Bacco in Toscana (English translation: Bacchus in Tuscany)

John Needham
John Needham
Born	10 September 1713
Died	30 December 1781
Nationality	English
Fields	Biology

John Turberville Needham FRS (10 September 1713 – 30 December 1781) was an English biologist and Roman Catholic priest.

He was first exposed to natural philosophy while in seminary school and later published a paper which, while the subject was mostly about geology, described the mechanics of pollen and won recognition in the botany community.

He did experiments with gravy and later, tainted wheat, in containers. The experiments consisted of briefly boiling a broth mixture and then cooling the mixture in an open container to room temperature. Later, the flasks would be sealed, and microbes would grow a few days later. Those experiments seemed to show that there was a life force that produced spontaneous generation. Today, it is now known that the boiling time was insufficient to kill any endospores of microbes and the cooling of flasks left open to the air could cause microbial contamination. It could also be ascertained that Needham did not use proper sterile technique. His experiments were later challenged and repeated by Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian scientist. Using a slightly different protocol (with a longer boiling time), Spallanzani did not have any microbes grow in his sealed flasks, contradicting Needham's findings.

He is frequently believed to be an Irish Jesuit, a myth which was created by Voltaire during a feud regarding spontaneous generation in which Voltaire was against Needham and his theories.

He became a member of the Royal Society in 1768 and was the first Catholic priest to do so.

Needham's experiments with the spontaneous generation of life were cited by French Enlightenment philosopher Baron d'Holbach in his atheist work, the System of Nature.

External links[link]

• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Biography at Science World

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