XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 383 
views to those of Needham and Buffon, and by 
means of certain experiments he showed that it 
was quite possible to stop the process by boiling 
the water, and closing the vessel in which it was 
contained. ‘‘ Oh !” said his opponents ; “but what 
do you know you may be doing when you heat the 
air over the water in this way? You may be de- 
stroying some property of the air requisite for the 
spontaneous generation of the animalcules.” 
However, Spallanzani’s views were supposed to 
_ be upon the right side, and those of the others fell 
into discredit; although the fact was that Spallan- 
zani had not made good his views. Well, then, 
the subject continued to be revived from time to 
time, and experiments were made by several per- 
sons; but these experiments were not altogether 
satisfactory. It was found that if you put an in- 
fusion in which animalcules would appear if it were 
exposed to the air into a vessel and boiled it, and 
_ then sealed up the mouth of the vessel, so that no 
air, save such as had been heated to 212°, could 
_ reach its contents, that then no animalcules would 
be found ; but if you took the same vessel and ex- 
_ posed the infusion to the air, then you would get 
 animalcules. Furthermore, it was found that if 
- you connected the mouth of the vessel with a red- 
hot tube in such a way that the air would have to 
_ pass through the tube before reaching the infusion, 
that then you would get no animalcules. Yet 
_ another thing was noticed: if you took two flasks 
