154 THE DESTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF 
resembling seeds. Such eggs,—‘become dry, are 
preserved in this state, and then develop like seeds 
after they have been placed in some damp medium.” 
“Why then,” he adds,* “may not the germs of the 
lowest kind of animalcules be possessed of a similar 
nature?” He next adduced various considerations 
which led him to regard this view as more and more 
probable, though none of his reasons would be deemed 
very weighty or even relevant by physiologists of the 
present day. The space at my disposal will not 
permit of my following him into these discussions— 
the reader curious on the subject can, however, con- 
sult Spallanzani’s work for himself. 
In respect therefore to the questions with which 
we are now more especially concerned, the contro- 
versy carried on between Spallanzani and Needham 
about a century ago led to the following important 
results. Not a single living thing, egg, or seed, had 
been shown to be able to resist, when in the moist 
state, an exposure to boiling water for a single 
moment. AllI naturally moist forms of living matter 
with which experiment had’ been made, had been 
shown to be killed by a much lower heat—that is, at 
a temperature of about 140° F. or less. 
And in order to account for the appearance of the 
lowest animalcules in previously boiled fluids, other- 
* Loc. cit., pp. 69—73. 
