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 



