CHAPTER XI 

MODES OF TESTING THE QUESTION WHETHER CERTAIN 
SOLUTIONS CAN GIVE BIRTH TO SPECKS OF LIVING 
MATTER 
NE of the best of the methods for investigating 
this problem was introduced so long ago as 
the middle of the eighteenth century, during the 
controversy that occurred between the learned 
Abbé Spallanzani, Professor of Philosophy at 
Modena, and Turberville Needham, a Catholic 
priest, who is said to be the first of the English 
Catholic clergy who had the honour of being 
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He 
was also a corresponding member of the French 
Accademy, and was a friend of Buffon, the celebrated 
naturalist. They often worked together and shared 
one another’s views, as may be seen from the early 
volumes of Buffon’s great work on “Natural 
History,” where an account of the views of 
Needham is to be found. In the controversy 
between him and Spallanzani, what is known as 
the “method of Spallanzani” was had recourse 
to in the most important of their experiments.! It 
1 An account of these experiments may best be seen in a French 
translation of a work by Spallanzani entitled “‘ Nouvelles Recherches 
sur les Découvertes Microscopiques,” 1769, with copious notes by 
Needham. See especially pp. 8, 102-135, and 216-218. 
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