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Figure 1-21 Events in spontaneous generation

Year Event
1668 Francesco Redi attacks spontaneous generation and disproves it for large organisms
1745 John Needham adds chick broth to a flask and boils it, lets it cool and waits. Microbes grow and he proposes it as an example of spontaneous generation.
1768 Lazzaro Spallanzani repeats Needham's experiment, but removes all the air from the flask. No growth occurs.
1859 Louis Pasteur's swan-neck flasks show that spontaneous generation does not occur.
1870

Thomas H. Huxley gives his "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis" lecture. The speech offered powerful support for Pasteur's claim to have experimentally disproved spontaneous generation.

1877 John Tyndall publishes his method for fractional sterilization, showing the existence of heat-resistant bacterial spores.