Highlights in the History of Microbiology 25 



of animals under the conditions set forth by these early workers. 

 Other formulae are probably pure fabrications. 



After Leeuwenhoek and others enlightened the world with the 

 discovery of bacteria, theories concerning the origin of these 

 small (microscopic) forms of life were soon forthcoming, just as 

 there had been explanations for the creation of large ( macroscopic ) 

 visible forms of life. John T. Needham (1713-1781), a Roman 

 Catholic priest, firmly believed that a "productive" or a "vegeta- 

 tive" force was responsible for the creation of living things. This 

 was in opposition to Georges Buff on (1708-1788), the naturalist, 

 who felt that all life possessed certain chemical constituents in 

 common. After death, he postulated, these constituents were 

 released and remained very active until they could locate and 

 combine with other similar particles and form a new microscopic 

 organism. Needham was one of the first research workers to con- 

 duct scientific laboratory experiments in support of abiogenesis, 

 and the Royal Society was convinced by his proof of the theory, 

 which resulted in his election as a Fellow of the Society. Not to 

 be outdone, the Academy of Science in Paris made him an As- 

 sociate Member of their organization. 



These honors irked Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799) who re- 

 peated the work of Needham and arrived at the opposite con- 

 clusion—life does not arise spontaneously. Needham had boiled 

 meat juice or vegetable infusions in corked flasks, and upon standing 

 he found that life had been generated in these containers. Spal- 

 lanzani (the maker of the doll in Offenbach's opera. Tales of Hoff- 

 man) boiled his infusions for a longer period and then sealed the 

 openings of his flasks in a flame. None of these revealed spoilage. 

 To quote Spallanzani: "I used hermetically sealed vessels. I kept 

 them for one hour in boiling water, and after opening and ex- 

 amining their contents, after a reasonable interval I found not the 

 slightest trace of animalcules, though I had examined the infusion 

 from nineteen different vessels." This might be considered to be 

 the first laboratory proof that abiogenesis was not founded upon 

 fact. He criticized Needham for using such porous material as 

 cork which allowed the entrance of microorsjanisms into his boiled 



