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Notes on Portrait-plates 
work in Pavia he undertook journeys for the purpose of collecting objects, 
biological and mineralogical, to enrich his museum, and in general to elucidate 
Nature. Thus he visited the Gulf of Genoa, the quarries of Carrara, the Apennine 
and Euganean hills, the island of Elba and Lake Comacchio. In 1785 he 
undertook a long and hazardous journey to the east, visiting the Aegean 
islands and Constantinople, returning by land through Bulgaria, Koumelia, 
Transylvania, Hungary and Austria. The results of his travels in the volcanic 
districts of Italy and Sicily led to the publication of his famous Viaggi alle due 
Sicilie (1792-1797) in six volumes, a work which according to the most 
modern writers laid the foundations of the science of volcanology. He ascended 
Vesuvius, Etna and Stromboli and in 1788 descended into the active crater 
of Vulcano, in the Lipari, at a temperature which burned his feet and set fire 
to his staff. 
In addition to these researches the Abbate was an early student of the 
pneumatic chemistry of Black, Priestley and Lavoisier and carried out a vast 
number of experiments on the composition of the air under the most diverse 
conditions and at his death left the manuscript records of nearly 12,000 
experiments dealing with the respiration of animals and plants of every kind. 
This work, published posthumously, remains a classic and established the 
fundamental doctrine of the respiration of the tissues. His amazing industry 
and resource are not to be measured by the works referred to for in addition 
he left completed manuscripts on regenerations, the natural history of the sea, 
journeys to Switzerland, Turkey and Hungary and a work on the natural 
history of bats. He wrote papers on corals, sponges, nocturnal lights at sea, 
waterspouts and on the electrical organ of the torpedo, the divining rod, 
swallows, owls and eels. 
All who knew him relate that he was instantly able to grasp a problem in 
all its bearings. Until, however, he had put it to experimental tests in an infinite 
series of variations he was most guarded in the expression of his opinions. 
His early training in logic, his incomparable experimental skill and the range 
of his mental vision guided him almost invariably to an unerring judgment. 
There is no research which he carried out a hundred and more years ago that 
would not be regarded as meriting distinction if it were done to-day. 
Spallanzani’s chief claim for mention in Parasitology must rest on his 
admirable experimental and microscopic researchs on spontaneous generation. 
These were first published in 1765 under the title Saggio di osservazioni micro- 
scopiche concernenti il sistema della generazione di Signori di Needham e Buff on. 
In this work he adversely criticized the view of Needham and Buff on that 
living animalcules are developed in heated organic infusions from the so-called 
“organical parts” by a vegetative force. Spallanzani gave a minute account 
of the forms and movements of the organisms of infusions which, he held, 
showed all the attributes of “animality.” By studying infusions, boiled and 
unboiled, he saw multitudes of “infusoria” appear even when the flasks were 
plugged with wool, paper, cork, or wood. Even after the vessels were her- 
