The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-16

at once as q case OF abiogenesis. Having
small means of observation, and making little
use of what they had, it is not surprising that
these early theorists attributed to spontaneous
generation the appearance of many living
creatures which little care would have
traced to pre-existing germs. The maggot
developed in putrid meat was allowed no pa
rent except the carcass on which 10 fed, and
other blunders, equally gross, were made (ss
was naturaD by inquirers who did everything
except inquire.
About two centuries ago, when the spirit
of induction had laid firm hold of the minds
of men, even biological science felt the revo-
luton. Redi seems to have been the first to
test the accepted doctrine of spontaneous
generation. BY the simplest process in the
world he proved that putrid meat did not
generate msggots. He kept the blowflies
away and the maggots did not appear. He
collected the blowfies' eggs, and hstched his
msggots without the presence of the flesh
which had so long been their reputed parent.
Similar results followed in other like cases,
and having shown that gentles and other
creatures, whose origin he investigated, cer-
tainly were not the products of spontaneous
generation, Redi conceived the theory that
spontaneous generation was fiction from
beginning to end, and that the exclusive
method of nature was expressed by what has
since become the familiar maxim Omne CioUns
eT ot0O. AS working hypothesis to
be tested by future experiment this
was legitimate enough. AS
| a scientific conclusion it would have been a
very audacious generalization. Until the
| commencement of what may be called the
micr roscopic age there were no means of car
| rying the investigation further By this
| time, however, the maxim Ono1le Us0Un1 eG
0t00 had got associated with ideas now almost
| exploded about distinctive vital forces and
| had become as firm an article of faith as the
opposite doctrine had been before Redi dis
| credited it. A new era was commenced, and
it is to the revelations of the microscope
during the last century, and especially in
quite recent times, that both parties to the
controversy appeal. The programme of all
these experiments has been the same. First
destroy and exclude every trace of ife-then
see if under any influences life can be
evolved. At each successive stage the strin-
gency of the methods employed has steadily
increased. In all of them, however, heat has
been the destructive agent employed. Need
ham took a solution of hay, boiled it
| to destroy all life within, and
corked and sealed his TASKS to exclude
all access of life from without. Never
theless his solutions bred auimalcules, and he
ascribed the fact to spontaneous generation.
SpallanZani repeated the experiment with
severer precautions. He boiled his solutions
longer, and hermetically sealed his TASKS in-
stead of cooking them. No animalcules ap-
peared, and SO far the inference seemed ir-
resistible, that the source of life in Need
hams experiments was something which
might be destroyed by heat and excluded by
a film of glass. If SO, what more likely than
q germ? Schwann followed on the same
side. He calcned air and allowed it to ap-
proach his boiled solutions and no life ap-
peared. He admitted ordinary air, and life
abounded.
Thus it seemed to be proved almost to de-
monstration that the presence of unburned
air contributed largely to the production of
life, and no explanation of this was SO natu-
raj as the hypothesis that the air is laden with
myriads of floating germs of life. The mega
tive conclusion that this access of germs was
the only mode by which life could be pro-
duced, was from its nature less easy to prove.
So far as Schwann's experiments went, it
seemed likely, but they supplied too slender
and as it afterwards proved, too unsound a
basis for SO large generalization. Pasteur,
himself q strong opponent of spontaneous
generation, repeated Schwann's experiments,
and though he too at first obtained only mega
tive results, he found that when the solution
contained certain alkaline fluids life
appeared in spite of the boil
ing and the calcining. This showed that
, to generalize from Schwann's results would
have been at least premature, but further ex
IL
| applied was raised from @. 100 to @. 10, tn,
, power of evolving life disappeared even frou
the alkaline solution. No visible germs, un
less specially protected, have ever been showI
to require so high temperature to destroy
them in solution, and the necessity of assum
ing this degree of vital resistance appreciabl,
weakened the germ hypothesis. Still up t.
this point it did seem to be established tina
, the power of vital evolution could not surviv,
a fluid temperature of G. 10; and the furthe
inference that connected this temperatur,
, with the presumed limit of vital resistance il
germs was at least as likely as any other ex
PLANTATION. We say this without being un
mindful of DIR. Bastian's suggestion that hea
may be conceived as preventing vital evolu
tion by affecting the molecular arrangement
of matter as well as by the annihilation o
germs. Pasteurs experiments on this sub
ject were announced in 1862, the date a
which Professor Huxley closes his history
For our remaining facts we have to draw upor
DR. Bastian's continuation of the story. Pro
fessor Wyman, of Cambridge, q. S., Profes
sor MantegaZza of Turin, and Professor Can
2 toni, of Pavia, have all tried similar expsri
ments, in which temperatures of from G. 12t
to @. 142 were employed, and, notwthstand
ing this, bhey have found living organisms il
their solutions. Finally, DIR. Bastian, in ar
elaborate paper published in Nature, yer,
shortly before Professor Huxleys address wa
1 delivered, minutely describes aud pictures
3 the living organisms which he obtained frou
, Theoretically sealed TASKS some of which har
8 been subjected by Professor Frankland TO
: temperature of G. $50 for several hours
: What makes the experiments the more start
ling is that the fluids employed in several o
4 them wera not infusiOps of organic pattar