SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 89 



originated a method which is now an every-day 

 procedure in every bacteriological laboratory. 



These experiments, which were distinctly unfa- 

 vorable to the theory of spontaneous generation, 

 were not permitted to go unchallenged. Their 

 most noteworthy opponent was Prof. F. A. Pouchet, 

 Director of the Museum of Natural History at 

 Rouen, a man celebrated as a naturalist and of 

 high standing among the scientists of his coun- 

 try. In 1859, Pouchet published a large work en- 

 titled "Heterogenic" in which the experiments of 

 his opponents are subjected to a searching criticism, 

 and in which many new experiments are described 

 which, in the opinion of the author, prove conclu- 

 sively that life develops in boiled infusions under 

 conditions which completely exclude the entrance 

 of germs from the outside. Pouchet threw himself 

 into this work with much vigor and enthusiasm. 

 He repeated the experiments of Schulze and 

 Schwann, and obtained living organisms where they 

 had obtained none. If germs exist in the air in the 

 abundance which would be necessary to produce 

 the effects ascribed to them, Pouchet maintains, the 

 air would be quite obscured. The extensive re- 

 searches of Pouchet, carried on with the appear- 

 ance at least of careful control, and set forth in a 



