About this Item
PRESENTATION AND ASSOCIATION COPY OF THE RARE AUTHOR'S OFFPRINT OF PASTEUR'S FAMOUS LECTURE DISCREDITING THE THEORY OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION, WITH HIS AUTOGRAPH NOTES TO FELLOW SCIENTIST JOHN TYNDALL. Spontaneous generation - the theory that living organisms are routinely created from inanimate matter - goes back to ancient times. Although the theory had been cast into doubt by the observations and experimental work of Redi, Spallanzani, and others in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it proved remarkably hard to kill, and still had many distinguished adherents in the early nineteenth century. In part its persistence was due to the rise of microscopy, which had revealed a host of previously unknown organisms, with no apparent origin, in soil, pond water, and other natural environments. Where had these organisms come from, if they had not been spontaneously generated? In part it was due to bona fide disputes over experimental techniques, with opponents of the theory arguing that demonstrations of the spontaneous generation of microorganisms in supposedly sterile nutrient media were merely the result of contamination or inadequate sterilization; and proponents of the theory arguing that the failure of microorganisms to grow in sterilized nutrient media in sealed flasks was the result either of damage to some vital ingredient in the medium resulting from the heat-sterilization process, or of the fact that the medium did not have access to oxygen or to some other factor in the air that was necessary to support spontaneous generation. See generally John Farley, The Spontaneous Generation Controversy from Descartes to Oparin (Johns Hopkins 1977). That is where matters rested when "[Felix] Pouchet launched his attempt to establish the doctrine of spontaneous generation on the basis of irrefutable experiments. Pouchet, a respected naturalist from Rouen and a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences, published in 1859 his long and controversial [Héterogenie ou traité de la génération spontanée], which created a sensation in France and probably stimulated the Académie des Sciences to institute the Alhumbert Prize in 1860 for the best 'attempt, by well conducted experiments, to through new light on the question of so-called spontaneous generations.'" Dictionary of Scientific Biography ("DSB"). Pasteur won the prize with the experimental work described in his lecture, which "provided the final experimental coup de grâce" to spontaneous generation, at least in France, although "the debate . dragged on for another twenty years in Britain and Germany ." (Farley, op. cit.). Pasteur had been led to his interest in spontaneous generation by his prior work on fermentation. Having determined that fermentation was caused by the action of living organisms, he moved on to wondering where those organisms came from - whether they were spontaneously generated or were the descendants of parent-organisms already present in, or introduced from the air into, the substance being fermented. Beginning in 1859, he conducted a series of experiments designed to eliminate the methodological quibbles that had arisen over earlier results, and to resolve the spontaneous generation question once and for all. Among these were the famous experiments demonstrating that no microorganisms would grow in sterilized nutrient media held in open, swan-necked flasks. (The flasks were open to ensure that the medium had access to air; the narrow, curved swan necks trapped dust particles in the air that might introduce new microorganisms into the medium.) In an ingenious coda to the experiment that demonstrated that the medium had not been damaged by sterilization, he found that "if one of the curved necks were detached from a hitherto sterile flask and placed upright in it, vegetative growths appeared in a day or two." ( DSB). Pasteur's results were discussed in a lecture he delivered in 1861 to the Société chimique de Paris. The lecture was originally published. Seller Inventory # 2239
Contact seller
Report this item
Bibliographic Details
Title: Sur les corpuscules organisés qui existent ...
Publisher: Ch. Lahure et Cie, Paris
Publication Date: 1862
Binding: original wrappers
Condition: Very Good
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: first edition offprint.
