1901] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 3 
maggots, he invariably observed flies buzzing around the 
meat and frequently aiighting on it. The maggots, he 
said, might be the half-developed progeny of these flies. 
Placing fresh meat in a jar covered with paper, he found 
that although the meat putrefied in the ordinary way, it 
never bred maggots, while meat in open jars soon swarm- 
ed with these organisms. For paper he substituted fine 
wire gauze, through which the odor of meat could arise. 
Over it the flies buzzed, and on it they laid their eggs, 
but the meshes being too small to permit the eggs to fall 
through, no maggots generated in the meat; they were 
on the contrary hatched on the gauze. 
By a series of such experiments Redi destroyed the be- 
lief in the spontaneous generation of maggots in meat, and 
with it many related beliefs.” 
In 1683, Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, justly called the 
“Father of microscopy,’ demonstrated the continuity of 
arteries and veins through intervening capillaries, thus 
affording ocular proof of Harvey’s discovery of the circu- 
lation of the blood ; discovered bacteria, seeing them first 
in saliva, discovered the rotifers, and first saw the little 
globules in yeast which Latour and Schwann subsequent- 
ly proved to be plants. 
Leeuwenhoek inveluntarily reopened the old controver- 
sy about spontaneous generation, by bringing forward a 
new world, peopled by creatures of such minuteness as to 
suggest not only a close relationship to the ultimate mole- 
cules of matter, but an easy transition from them. In 
succeeding years the development of the compound mi- 
croscope showed these minute organisms to exist in such 
numbers that putrescent infusions, both animal and veg- 
etable, literally teemed with them, one drop of such a li- 
quid furnishing a banquet for millions. Abbe Lazzaro 
Spallanzani (1777) filled flasks with organic infusions, 
sealed their necks, and, after subjecting their contents to 
the temperature of boiling water, placed them under con- 
