![]() Germ Theory of Disease, The End of Spontaneous Generation And for that, we can thank Louis Pasteur. The idea of spontaneous generation just sounds silly. Expose the two bricks to sunlight, and you will find that within a few days, fumes from the basil, acting as a leavening agent, will have transformed the vegetable matter into veritable scorpions.” Now, even the least scientific of us understand that mice make mice. A couple of examples of spontaneous generation you may have learned about in school are Jean Baptiste van Helmont’s “recipes” for creating mice and scorpions: How To Turn Wheat Into Mice “If a soiled shirt is placed in the opening of a vessel containing grains of wheat, the reaction of the leaven in the shirt with fumes from the wheat will, after approximately 21 days, transform the wheat into mice.” How To Turn Basil Into Scorpions “Carve an indentation in a brick, fill it with crushed basil, and cover the brick with another, so that the indentation is completely sealed. Since the days of Aristotle (384 - 322 BCE), scientists believed in spontaneous generation–the idea that some living things were created out of dust, dirt, air, or even rotten meat. Spontaneous Generation: Accepted Science for Two Millennia Scientific understanding was based on observations of the time, and there were some important pieces of the puzzle that were missing. Until relatively recently, scientists didn’t have any knowledge of the invisible world of microorganisms. What seems like common sense and is widely accepted as truth to us today was more of a mystery to even the most advanced thinkers not so long ago. Science is always evolving as we make new discoveries and we build on the knowledge of the observations of the past. ![]() Shannon Klingman to develop the first deodorant innovation in more than one hundred years. Understanding the invisible world of bacteria is what led Dr. There is a tiny, invisible world living on, in, and all around us. ![]() ![]() “Discontent is the first necessity of progress.”-Thomas Edison ![]()
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