166 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



of animal life has powers of regenerating itself 

 which are not inferior to those presented by 

 plants. 



Earth- Another experimenter was Spallanzani, whose 



name has already come before us in connection 

 with the question of spontaneous generation. 

 Spallanzani experimented on earth-worms and 

 showed that they possessed ppwers like tfaose^ 

 of the Hydra, though not so extensive, for 

 whilst the earth-worm, if divided transversely, 

 will produce a new head or a new tail, if 

 divided longitudinally it dies. 



But Spallanzani 's most important experi- 

 ments were those made upon the Salamander, 

 for this is a vertebrate animal, very much higher 



Salamander in the scale of nature than those with which we 

 have been concerned up to now. He found that 

 if the tail was cut off a new one would grow 

 which would contain vertebrae new vertebrae, 

 of course just like those which had formed the 

 skeleton of the original appendage. Further, he 

 showed that if a leg, or eyeji all four legs were 

 cut-off, it or they would grow again and that 

 this process might be repeated time after time. 

 In one experiment which he carried out, he 

 six times removed all four legs and the tail 

 from one Salamander during the three summer 

 months. The unwearied animal reconstructed 

 itself on each occasion and even on the last 



