Chicken Soup for the Cell

Two Centuries of Experiments on the Spontaneous Generation of Life

Timothy Hagen
Prof. Manweiler
CC 270
Research Paper
April 29, 2002

I have neither given or received, nor have I tolerated others' use of unauthorized aid.

Timothy Hagen

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Throughout the ages humans have pondered the origin of life: from whence does it come?
The answer to such a question carries great import on informing our basic assumptions about the
nature of the universe and reality. Today the debate rages between those who argue that a divine
agent brought about the origin of life and those who say that life is the product of non-directed
random chance. Given that the debate that exists today between evolutionists who portray
evolutionary theory as a modern, scientific explanation for the existence of life on earth, and
those who claim that ancient religious narratives of divinely designed creation, one may assume
that belief in the spontaneous generation of life from a nutrient soup is a relatively new idea in
the history of humankind. Yet a theory claiming that lower forms of life spontaneously generate
from decaying or nutrient matter goes back to the time of Aristotle. Ever since Aristotle, and
perhaps even before, a large body of the scientific community in western civilization has
believed in the spontaneous generation of life, albeit in different ways.
Yet a series of experiments between 1668 and 1876 laid to rest the idea of spontaneous
generation as an every-day occurrence. The change in scientific thought was difficult to make.
Although Redi, one of the first scientists in this series, was able to disprove the spontaneous
generation of larger life forms, the discovery of the microscope led to a resurgence in the idea of
spontaneous generation to explain the appearance of astonishingly large numbers of microscopic
organisms in seemingly isolated liquids. Over the next two centuries after Redi's famous
experiments, various scientists made experiments to prove or disprove the idea of spontaneous
generation, and both sides were very persuasive. Much like the long debate over the structure of
the universe following Copernicus' controversial claim that the solar system was heliocentric, the
debate over spontaneous generation of life raged for a long time before a scientist could offer
conclusive proof to end the debate. Like the debate over the structure of the universe, scientists'
worldviews played a role in influencing their conception of the origin of life. Those who saw

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spontaneous generation as either evidence for the lack of Gods creative act in history or as proof
of Gods continuing creativity supported the idea of spontaneous generation. Yet those who came
to the question with rigorous scientific experiments and an open but discerning mind found no
observable occurrence of spontaneous generation. Even after the theory of spontaneous
generation of life was convincingly shown not to occur in many experiments from the
seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, many scientists still believe that at one point in history,
spontaneous generation had to occur in order to produce all life in the universe independent of a
supernatural creative agent.
This study focuses on the two centuries of controversial experiments to disprove the
theory of spontaneous generation as an observable occurrence. It illustrates the difficulty in
changing entrenched forms of scientific thought and the creativity and perceptiveness needed to
perform conclusive experiments. To achieve this goal, this paper looks at the history of
experiments leading up to a final disproof of spontaneous generation, starting from Redi and
continuing to Pasteur and Tyndall. The paper will hopefully contribute to a better understanding
of current scientific debates and the difficulty of finding conclusive proof for or against certain
scientific theories. The study should also inform our current debate on the origins of life.
Aristotle and the Origin of Lower Life-Forms
The theory of spontaneous generation of lower life forms was universally accepted from
the time of Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. to the seventeenth century A.D. Aristotle held that
heat was necessary for the generation of life, whether by sexual, asexual, or spontaneous means.
Lower forms of life spontaneously arose from lifeless materials with the addition of rain, air, or
solar heat. As in the case of the Ptolemaic system of deferents and epicycles, later scientists
added arguments in support of the ancient Greek theories. For example, the seventeenth-century
English naturalist Alexander Ross argued against the first doubters of the spontaneous generation

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theory with the following words:

So may we doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated, or if beetles and
wasps in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such life be
procreated of putrefied matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it is
by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense, and
experience. If he doubts this, let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields
swarming with mice begot of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the
inhabitants. (qtd. in Locy 278)
Other recipes for creating life included killing and burying an ox in order to produce bees, and
placing rags and bran in an open container to produce mice. Even Newton suggested that some
kinds of plants "arise from the attenuated tails of comets" (Manger 243).1 Thus the idea of the
spontaneous generation of lower life forms was universal for a great portion of western history.
Redis Evidence against Macroscopic Spontaneous Generation
The Italian court physician Francesco Redi (1642-1726) performed the experiments to
disprove the spontaneous generation of macroscopic organisms. In 1668 he published his work
Experienze Intorno Alla Generazione Degl'Insetti (Experiments on the Generation of Insects)
that outlines his experiments demonstrating that insects, specifically flies, do not spontaneously
generate from decaying matter. His experiment is the famous one of placing meat in several
flasks. Some of the flasks he left open, others he sealed with paper, and still others he covered
with a tight mesh. The meat rotted in all the flasks. After several days, the meat in the uncovered
flasks was full of maggots. Although the meat in the paper-covered flasks also decayed, no
maggots grew within it. The meat in the mesh-covered containers likewise decayed, but flies laid
their eggs upon the mesh and maggots soon hatched on the mesh, but none appeared on the meat.
1 Even today some scientists propose that life on earth came from organic compounds in comets.

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From this experiment, Redi concluded that maggots, and subsequently flies, do not
spontaneously arise from decaying meat as had previously been supposed, but rather hatched
from eggs laid by previously-existing flies. After Redi's publication, the scientists Swammerdam
(1637-1681) and Vallisnieri (1661-1730) continued with similar work until it was generally
accepted that macroscopic organisms did not spontaneously arise from non-living matter.
New Controversy
Redi's argument, however, only moved the debate on spontaneous generation of life to
the realm of microscopic organisms. Seven years after Redi's experiments, Antony van
Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) had discovered the tiny infusoria and animalcules in drops of water.
The discovery of this microscopic world of life led to many competing theories on their origins-did the tiny creatures come from seeds of their own kind or arise spontaneously out of nutrient
solutions?
To prove that microorganisms are not spontaneously generated, Louis Joblot (1645-1723)
performed experiments of sterilizing and exposing or sealing nutrient solutions. He boiled his
nutrient media and divided it into two parts. Half he sealed, the other half he left uncovered,
much like Redi's experiment. The open container was soon full of microscopic organisms while
the sealed one remained lifeless. Yet once he opened the sealed container, it soon was full of
organisms. Jablot thus seemed to disprove the spontaneous generation of microorganisms.
Yet the Frenchman Georges Buffon (1707-1788) and the English microscopist John
Needham (1713-1781) sought to prove the theory of spontaneous generation. Needham
performed countless experiments similar to Jablot's, but each time found support for spontaneous
generation of life. Needham collected meat broths and sealed the juices in vials, which he then
corked and sealed with mastic. These sealed bottles he boiled in order to kill all microbes in the
broth. Yet irregardless of boiling or repeated heating, all the bottles "swarm'd with Life, and

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microscopical Animals of most Dimensions" (qtd. in Magner 245). Needham and Buffon's
experiments "proving" spontaneous generation gained considerable publicity, especially once
their work was published in the Transactions of the Royal Society in London (1748). Needham
argued that "there is a vegetative Force in every microscopical Point of Matter, and every visible
Filament of which the whole animal or vegetable Texture consists" (qtd. in Magner 245).
Needham theorized that all plants and animals decay to form a common particle, "a kind of
universal Semen" that reformed to generate new forms of life.
Yet Needham's alleged "proof" was flawed, as the Italian scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani
argued when he performed counter-experiments to disprove the theory of the spontaneous
generation of life. Spallanzani pointed out that Needham's use of cork and mastic to seal his
bottles was not proven to block the entrance of air, and Needham's lack of records on the
temperature and time of heating for his flasks made the experiments difficult to repeat or verify.
Spallanzani performed many experiments to disprove Needham's theory. He took nutrient
broths from meats and vegetables and hermetically sealed the flasks with a flame. These nutrient
solutions then remained free from microscopic life.
Needham countered Spallanzani's experiments by arguing that the harsh treatment of the
nutrient fluids and flasks destroyed the vegetative force that was the germ of all microscopic life.
Yet Spallanzani was able to refute Needham's arguments by exposing his infusions to air. No
matter the length of boiling, the nutrient broth would quickly turn murky with life when exposed
to air. Spallanzani swayed most naturalists against the theory of the spontaneous generation of
life.
Oxygen Brings Yet another Twist
Yet a new twist to the argument came with the discovery of oxygen in 1774 and its
importance for life. Proponents of the theory of spontaneous generation argued that the heating

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of the vials in the boiling water destroyed the life-giving properties of the air. To counter this
argument, the scientists Franz Schulze (1815-1873) and Theodore Schwann performed
experiments proving that sterilized air did not lead to the generation of life. Schulze passed air
bubbles through sulfuric acid to kill any germs and found that this non-heated air would not lead
to life in the sterilized nutrient fluids. Likewise, Schwann sterilized the air by passing it through
a heated tube and showed that a frog could breathe the air and live. Yet similarly sterilized air did
not lead to life in the nutrient fluid. Despite these experiments, proponents of the theory of
spontaneous generation could still argue that such occurred only under certain situations. Thus
the debate continued for many more years, demonstrating the difficulty in both proving or
disproving certain influential scientific theories.
The Great Showdown
One of the last great defenders of the theory of spontaneous generation was Flix
Archimde Pouchet (1800-1872). Like Needham and Buffon, Pouchet had a theory of
spontaneous generation that he wished to prove. Rather than demonstrate whether spontaneous
generation occurred, Pouchet wished to show how it occurred. Pouchet claimed in his book,
Heterogenesis: "When, by meditation, it was evident to me that spontaneous generation was one
of the means employed by nature for the production of living beings, I applied myself to discover
by what means one could place these phenomena in evidence" (qtd. in Locy 286). He argued for
heterogenesis, or the existence of some vital force from decayed organisms that retained vital
properties and formed back into living creatures in the right conditions. The elements necessary
for heterogenesis were organic matter, air, water, and the correct temperature. All of Pouchet's
experiments "proved" his theory of the vital force correct, just as Needham's experiments
"showed" the vegetative force at work. Pouchet repeated the experiments of Spallanzani,
Schulze, and Schwann, and found that in all cases, life seemed to spontaneously appear. He thus

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proclaimed their experiments false, and his positive experiments as proof for the spontaneous
generation theory.
Pouchet's most famous experiment involves bringing seemingly sterile elements together
under mercury to produce spontaneous generation of life. He inserted a carefully-sealed bottle of
boiled water under mercury and opened the bottle. Then he placed chemical salts into the water,
which reacted to produce "artificial" and germ-free oxygen. Pouchet then placed hay that had
been heated to a high temperature into the flask that was still submerged under mercury. After a
few days the water was cloudy with life. Pouchet portrayed this experiment as conclusive proof
for the spontaneous generation of life, as according to his understanding, all elements in the
experiment had been sterile. Pouchet's convincing assertions and supportive experiments
rekindled the strong debate over spontaneous generation, and he gathered a large following of
adherents to his ideas.
The famous scientist, Louis Pasteur, demonstrated the error of Pouchet's experiment.
Pasteur repeated Pouchet's experiment for an audience of scientists at the Sorbonne. By shining a
bright light on the surface of the mercury, Pasteur illuminated the large number of dust particles
on the surface. He then showed that an object inserted into the mercury carries the dust particles
and germs with it. Thus, he could argue that the hay or other objects carried the dust from the
surface to the interior of the mercury bath, and thus contaminated the "sterile" water.
In another experiment to demonstrate the existence of germs in the atmosphere, Pasteur
collected airborne dust on a cotton wad, then dissolved the cotton to study the dust under a
microscope. There he demonstrated that the air contains floating, living germs. Pasteur was able
to show how the airborne germ counts varied by location. Places with high human densities had
high germ counts. But mountains and arctic regions had much lower germ counts in the
atmosphere.

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Given his evidence that germs were transported through the air, Pasteur was able to
perform a convincing experiment to demonstrate that these airborne germs are the source of
"spontaneous life" in nutrient flasks. Pasteur drew out the neck of a flask into a long tube, and
bent it down und up again in a swan-neck s-curve shape. Dust and germs would settle in the
lowest point of the swan-neck bend, while the air could reach the interior of the sterilized flask
unhindered. With such a configuration, the nutrient fluid would stay clear for an indefinite period
of time. But when the flask was sloshed to allow rapid air movement into the flask, or if the neck
was broken, outside germs could enter, and the fluid would quickly show evidences of
microscopic life.
Pasteur's experiments led him to believe that not only does life not spontaneously
generate, but that microbes do not simply transmute from one species to another. He claims that
although the "ideas on the transformation of species are so readily adopted" that he cannot accept
such.
Although Pasteur's arguments and experiments were very convincing, Pouchet challenged
his conclusions. The Academy of Sciences set up a commission to settle the argument. Before the
debate, however, Pasteur offered a speech to intellectuals at the Sorbonne. He said his topic was
one of importance among many others that included the age of the world, the unity or
multiplicity of the human race, the progressive transformation of one species into another, and
the idea that God is unnecessary. He claimed that his topic focused on the question: "Can living
beings come into the world without having been preceded by beings similar to them?" Pasteur
claimed that his topic was of incredible significance, because upon the idea of spontaneous
generation hinged humankind's entire view of creation:
And so, gentlemen, we see that once the doctrine of spontaneous generation is admitted,
the history of creation and the origins of the organic world follow without further ado. We

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simply take a drop of sea-water, and (as M. Michelet's tells us in beautiful prose) out of
this water, which contains a bit of inanimate nitritic matter, sea-mucus, or, as he calls it,
fertile jelly, the first creatures emerge by spontaneous generation. Transforming
themselves bit by bit, they climb the ranks of creation, reaching, after, say, ten thousand
years, the level of insects, and doubtless, after a hundred thousand years, the level of
apes, and of Man himself.
Now, perhaps, you see the connection between the issue of spontaneous generation and
the grander problems I enumerated at the beginning of my lecture. (Pasteur 1).
Pasteur makes clear that the theory of spontaneous generation carries great import on how people
will be able to view to origins of life, the existence of God, and the transformation of species. In
conclusion, Pasteur claims that he will only look at the facts, and the facts he sees demonstrate
that spontaneous generation does not occur:
I have taken my drop of water from the immensity of creation, and I have taken it full of
the elements appropriate to the development of inferior beings. And I wait, I watch, I
question it, begging it to recommence for me the beautiful spectacle of the first creation.
But it is dumb, dumb since these experiments were begun several years ago; it is dumb
because I have kept it from the only thing man cannot produce, from the germs which
float in the air, from Life, for Life is a germ and a germ is Life. Never will the doctrine of
spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow of this simple experiment." (qtd. in
Magner 250).
After this speech, Pouchet withdrew from the showdown scheduled for several months later in
Chevruels laboratory in the National History Museum at the Jardin des Planets.
Yet the Debate Persists
Despite Pasteur's claim that his experiments definitively destroyed the doctrine of

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spontaneous generation, some scientists, such as Henry Charlton Bastian (1837-1915) argued for
the spontaneous generation of life de novo, or organizing from inanimate matter without the vital
or vegetative force of preexisting life. Bastian went even beyond the arguments of Needham and
Pouchet, who only argued for heterogenesis from the particles of the vital force. The danger of
Bastian's theories however, were that they would turn scientists away from a better
understanding of germs, which would negatively influence development in medicine and disease
theory.
Although all previous experiments against the theory of spontaneous generation seemed
quite convincing, John Tyndall (1820-1893) offered a further experiment in which the lightscattering properties of particulate matter were used to show that nutrient solutions exposed to
particle-free air did not cloud with life. Tyndall constructed a box with test tubes held airtight in
the bottom One side of the box was a glass window, while a small window on the side allowed a
beam of light in to illuminate any floating particles. The box was airtight, with the only air access
through two coiled glass tubes that used Pasteur's gravity-trap effect of s-curved tubes to remove
dust particles from the air. The inside of the box was coated in a sticky glycerine to trap dust
particles. The box was left to sit for several days until the air inside was optically clear. Then
Tyndall filled the test-tubes through an airtight rubber seal on the top of the box through which
he inserted a funnel. The tubes were then boiled from underneath. Tyndall developed a method of
discontinuous heating to destroy even heat-resistant bacterial spores, and thus completely
sterilized the nutrient solutions. The fluids were exposed to flowing, but particle-free air, and
remained clear for months. Yet when Tyndall finally opened the door to the box, the fluids were
cloudy within days. Tyndall's creative experiment and clear explanations thus destroyed the
theory of the spontaneous generation of life and helped direct research towards germ theory.
Although Tyndall offered rather conclusive proof against the spontaneous generation of

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microscopic life, some scientists continue to argue that life had to spontaneously generate at
some point in history. Because life could not always have existed, and because many scientists
deny the possibility of a divine creative agent in the formation of life, the only possible origin of
life would be spontaneous generation. This argument is seemingly impossible to prove one way
or another. Scientists such as Needham and Pouchet seemingly proved the idea of spontaneous
generation. However, their experiments were all done in order to prove pre-existing ideas.
Furthermore, their experiments were shown to be flawed by other scientists such as Spallanzani
and Pasteur. No rigorous scientific experiment has ever demonstrated the spontaneous generation
of life. Yet because of their fundamental assumptions of the nature of the universe and the divine,
some scientists claim that a long time ago, in a very special situation, a nutrient broth not made
from any previously living organisms somehow came together and formed a living creature that
then developed into all the variety of historic and modern life. All experiments to the contrary, a
scientist's denial of a supernatural creative force behind life forces a belief in the spontaneous
generation theory of life.
Conclusion
Throughout all of western civilization since the time of Aristotle, many people have
believed in the theory of the spontaneous generation of life to some extent or another. Initially,
casual observation seemed to support this idea. Yet Redi's experiments with insects disproved the
spontaneous generation of macroscopic creatures. The discovery of microscopic life allowed for
a rebirth of the idea of spontaneous generation. Scientists such as Needham and Pouchet have
offered many experiments in favor of spontaneous generation. Yet the experiments of
Spallanzani, Schuzle, Schwann, Pasteur, and Tyndall show Needham and Pouchet's experiments
to be flawed and demonstrate that spontaneous generation does not occur in the observable
world. Yet with the popularity of a disbelief in supernatural creation, modern scientists still

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believe in the idea of a one-time event of spontaneous generation when the first creature came
into existence out of an organic soup that lacked even the vital or vegetative force of Needham
and Pouchet.
This investigation of the history of spontaneous generation shows the difficulty in
proving or disproving controversial theories. As new discoveries were made, supporters of
spontaneous generation were able to think of new explanations for their theory. Yet after each
discoverymicroscopic life and oxygenthe opponents of spontaneous generation were able to
develop experiments to disprove the theory. However, to this day, the fundamental beliefs of
many scientists concerning the nature of the universe and the divine compel them to believe in a
one-time event of spontaneous generation despite all experiments to the contrary.
Given the difficulty of proving spontaneous generation true or false even with
experiments, our current debate over evolution versus intelligent design or creation is even more
difficult. While the evidence against spontaneous generation may suggest that life could not arise
from a soup of organic molecules, and while astronomical evidence may suggest that creation did
not occur in only six days less than 10,000 years ago, neither side can actually travel back in time
to prove their claims of the miraculous to be true. However, the example of such people as
Spallanzani and Pasteur suggest that rigorous scientific investigation, when not overly prejudiced
by pre-determined worldviews, can greatly help in discovering the truth about the origins of life.

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Bibliography
Debr, Patrice. Louis Pasteur. Trans. Elborg Forster. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1994.
Kruif, Paul de. Microbe Hunters. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1926.
Lechevalier, Hubert A. and Solotorovsky, Morris. Three Centuries of Microbiology. New York:
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965.
Locy, William A. Biology and its Makers. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1915.
Magner, Lois N. A History of the Life Sciences. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1979.
Pasteur, Louis. On Spontaneous Generation. An address delivered by Louis Pasteur at the
"Sorbonne Scientific Soiree" of April 7, 1864. Trans. Unknown.
http://guava.phil.lehigh.edu/spon.htm