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Period: 340 BCE to
Spontaneous Generation
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322 BCE
Aristotle cited his spontaneous generation theory in "The History of Animals"
Aristotle was one of the few philosophers who established the idea of spontaneous generation -
Pier Antonio Micheli proved with fungi that spontaneous generation was incorrect.
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John Needham still convinced people that spontaneous generation was correct
John Needham used the method of boiling(which killed all living things) on broths. The broths would become cloudy at the end of the experiment. Needham believed that this was the proof of why spontaneous generation was correct. -
Lazzaro Spallanzani followed up on Needham's experiments
Spallanzani raised the question of whether air played an important role in spontaneous generation -
Charles Cagniard de la Tour proved that airborne microorganisms helped make fermentation possible
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Louis Pasteur's swan neck experiment proved that there was no spontaneous generation
The swan neck flask prevented bacterium and other organisms from entering the flask, while still allowing air to flow in. The broth did not become clouded in the swan neck flask, proving that spontaneous generation did no occur, and that microorganisms were the cause -
Louis Pasteur won the Alhumbert Prize for disproving the spontaneous generation theory