18 DEVELOPMENT OF BACTERIOLOGY 



curved, some straight, as is shown in F; they lay irregularly and 

 were interlaced. Since I had previously seen living animalcules of 

 this same kind in water, I endeavored to observe whether there was 

 life in them, but in none did I see the smallest movement that might 

 be taken as a sign of life." 



This patient worker, supplied with his crude microscope, gives a 

 fairly accurate description of these minute forms of life. But this 

 did not awaken the world to even a faint realization of the wonderful 

 invisible forms of life which were present in everything and were 

 always working for good or evil. It did, however, revive a discussion 

 which had waxed long and furious as to whether life can spring 

 spontaneously from inanimate matter or whether it is the descendant 

 of preexisting living organisms. 



G 



FIG. 1. The first drawings of bacteria by Leeuwenhoek. The dotted line C-D 

 indicates movement of the organism. (Morrey.) 



Spontaneous Generation. Back in the sixteenth century a famous 

 physicist and chemist, van Helmont, stated that mice can be 

 spontaneously generated by merely placing some dirty rags in a 

 receptible together with a few grains of wheat or a piece of cheese. 

 The same philosopher's method of engendering scorpions is also 

 amusing. 



"Scoop out a hole in a brick, put into it some sweet basil. Lay 

 a second brick upon the first, so that the hole may be imperfectly 

 covered. Expose the two bricks to the sun, and at the end of a few 

 days the smell of the sweet basil, acting as a ferment, will change 

 the herb into a real scorpion." 



An Italian, Bouonami, tells of a wonderful metamorphosis which 

 he had witnessed. Rotten timber, rescued from the sea, produced 

 worms; these gave rise to butterflies; and strangest of all, the butter- 

 flies became birds. 



Everyone thought it a self-evident fact that maggots sprang 

 spontaneously from decomposing meat or cheese, until an Italian 



