Discoveries
Spallanzani was a Catholic who researched the theory about the spontaneous generation of cellular life in 1768. His experiment suggested that microbes move through the air and that they could be killed through boiling. Critics of Spallazani's work argued his experiments destroyed the "life force" that was required for spontaneous generation to occur. His work paved the way for later research by Louis Pasteur, who defeated the theory of spontaneous generation. He also discovered and described animal (mammal) reproduction, showing that it requires both semen and an ovum. He was the first to perform in vitro fertilization, with frogs, and an artificial insemination, using a dog. Spallanzani showed that some animals, especially newts, can regenerate some parts of their body if injured or surgically removed.
Spallanzani is also famous for extensive experiments on the navigation in complete darkness by bats, where he concluded that bats use sound and their ears for navigation in total darkness (see animal echolocation). He was the pioneer of the original study of echolocation, though his study was limited to what he could observe. Later scientists moved onto studies of the sensory mechanisms and processing of this information.
His great work, however, is the Dissertationi di fisica animale e vegetale (2 vols, 1780). Here he first interpreted the process of digestion, which he proved to be no mere mechanical process of trituration - that is, of grinding up the food - but one of actual chemical solution, taking place primarily in the stomach, by the action of the gastric juice. He also carried out important researches on fertilization in animals (1780).
Read more about this topic: Lazzaro Spallanzani
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“One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.”
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