| Scientist: Lazzaro Spallanzani |
[b. Scandiano, (Italy), January 12, 1729, d. Pavia (Italy), February 11, 1799]
Spallanzani conducted important experiments in many areas. Working with microorganisms, he helped discredit the theory of spontaneous generation. He also showed that boiling water is a better sterilizing agent than hot air, and that some microorganisms can live for days in a vacuum. Spallanzani studied plant and animal reproduction and carried out experiments on the artificial insemination of frogs.
| 5min Related Video: Lazzaro Spallanzani |
| Biography: Lazzaro Spallanzani |
The Italian naturalist Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729-1799) was one of the founders of modern experimental biology.
Lazzaro Spallanzani was born in Scandiano on Jan. 12, 1729. He entered a Jesuit college at the age of 15 and later studied law at Bologna, but very early he became interested in physics and developed an overall knowledge of nature. He took orders in 1755 and is therefore often referred to as the Abbé Spallanzani. That year he began to teach logic, metaphysics, and classics at Reggio. In 1757 he was appointed to the chair of mathematics and physics at the university there; later he taught at the University of Modena.
In 1765 Spallanzani began publishing his numerous scientific works. Most of them are motivated by a philosophy of science which nowadays could be called reductionist, namely, a belief that most phenomena are reducible to physical and chemical explanation. In 1769 he accepted the chair of natural history at the University of Pavia, remaining at this post until his death on Feb. 11, 1799.
Spallanzani is well known for one of his major works on microscopical observation that concerned the systems of spontaneous generation, and was an attempt to disprove J.T. Needham's and the Comte de Buffon's theory in support of spontaneous generation. Although his experimentation was exact, and he did prove that some organisms can live in a vacuum for many days (anaerobiosis), his theory was not comprehensive enough. Thus Spallanzani did not succeed in establishing in a final way that the theory of spontaneous generation was wrong. He also did important work in embryology. He was an ovarian preformationist, and through his experiments with artificial fertilization using filtered semen he pointed out the need for the physical contact between the spermatozoa and the ovule. He thus disproved the fertilizing power of the seminal fluid. Yet he did not fully understand the process, and in plants he described fertilization as being effected by the spermatic vapor of the pollen and not by any of the visible parts of it. In his studies on regeneration of animals he practically established the modern lines of animal morphology.
Spallanzani also worked on problems of circulation, gastric digestion, respiration, the hearing of bats, the electricity of torpedo fish, and the reproduction of eels. As a result of these studies he gave experimental proof of the action of gastric juice on foodstuffs. He theorized that this action was not putrefaction or vinous fermentation, as others had thought, but acid fermentation; however, he was unable to isolate acid from the gastric mixture. His experiments on respiration provided evidence that tissues use oxygen and release carbon dioxide.
Especially noteworthy is the long trip Spallanzani undertook in Sicily and the neighboring volcanic areas. With systematic measurements and exact physical methods he established that there was nothing mysterious about the fire in the volcanoes; on the contrary, the same physical laws which apply on the surface of the earth are the ones which create volcanoes and which are acting in the heart of the earth. He succeeded in measuring the heat in one of the volcanoes and expressing it in degrees Fahrenheit, which were used in regular terrestrial measuring. His description of these areas is rich - not only in describing nature but also the social habits, customs, and crafts of the inhabitants and the ways of primitive science.
Further Reading
Spallanzani's life and career are well covered in Paul De Kruif, Microbe Hunters (1926), and Wade W. Oliver, Stalkers of Pestilence: The Story of Man's Ideas of Infection (1930). Spallanzani is also discussed in Joseph Needham, A History of Embryology (1934; 2d ed. 1959), and Arthur William Meyer, The Rise of Embryology (1939).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Lazzaro Spallanzani |
| Wikipedia: Lazzaro Spallanzani |
| Lazzaro Spallanzani | |
|---|---|
 Lazzaro Spallanzani
|
|
| Born | January 10, 1729 Scandiano |
| Died | February 12, 1799 Pavia |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Fields | Biology |
| Known for | Interpreting digestion, saying that it is a process of chemical solution |
Lazzaro Spallanzani (10 January 1729 – 12 February 1799) was an Italian biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and essentially discovered echolocation. His research of biogenesis paved the way for the investigations of Louis Pasteur.
Contents |
He was born in Scandiano in the modern province of Reggio Emilia and died in Pavia, Italy. Spallanzani was educated at the Jesuit College and started to study law at the University of Bologna, which he gave up soon and turned to science. Here, his famous kinswoman, Laura Bassi, was professor of physics and it is to her influence that his scientific impulse has been usually attributed. With her he studied natural philosophy and mathematics, and gave also great attention to languages, both ancient and modern, but soon abandoned them.
In 1754, at the age of 25 he became professor of logic, metaphysics and Greek in the University of Reggio, and in 1760 was moved to Modena, where he continued to teach with great assiduity and success, but devoted his whole leisure to natural science. He declined many offers from other Italian universities and from St Petersburg until 1768, when he accepted the invitation of Maria Theresa to the chair of natural history in the university of Pavia, which was then being reorganized. He also became director of the museum, which he greatly enriched by the collections of his many journeys along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In 1775, Spallanzani was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In 1785 he was invited to Padua University, but to retain his services his sovereign doubled his salary and allowed him leave of absence for a visit to Turkey where he remained nearly a year and made many observations, among which may be noted those of a copper mine in Chalki and of an iron mine at Principi. His return home was almost a triumphal progress: at Vienna he was cordially received by Joseph II and on reaching Pavia he was met with acclamations outside the city gates by the students of the university. During the following year his students exceeded five hundred. His integrity in the management of the museum was called in question, but a judicial investigation speedily cleared his honour to the satisfaction even of his accusers.
In 1788 he visited Vesuvius and the volcanoes of the Lipari Islands and Sicily, and embodied the results of his researches in a large work (Viaggi alle due Sicilie ed in alcune parti dell'Appennino), published four years later.
He died from bladder cancer on the 27th of February 1799, in Pavia. After his death, his bladder was removed for study by his colleagues, after which it was placed on public display in a museum in Pavia, Italy, where it remains to this day.
His indefatigable exertions as a traveller, his skill and good fortune as a collector, his brilliance as a teacher and expositor, and his keenness as a controversialist no doubt aid largely in accounting for Spallanzani's exceptional fame among his contemporaries; his letters account for his close relationships with many famed scholars and philosophers, like Buffon, Lavoisier, and Voltaire. Yet greater qualities were by no means lacking. His life was one of incessant eager questioning of nature on all sides, and his many and varied works all bear the stamp of a fresh and original genius, capable of stating and solving problems in all departments of science -- at one time finding the true explanation of stone skipping (formerly attributed to the elasticity of water) and at another helping to lay the foundations of our modern vulcanology and meteorology.
Spallanzani was a Catholic who researched the theory about the spontaneous generation of cellular life in 1768. His experiment proved that microbes move through the air and that they could be killed through boiling. This work paved the way for later research by Louis Pasteur.
He also discovered and described animal (mammal) reproduction, showing that it requires both semen and an ovum. He was the first to perform 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).
General
Work on insects
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lazzaro Spallanzani |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
 | Year 1768 (in Science & Technology) |
| Year 1779 (in Science & Technology) |
| Laura Bassi (history 1450-1789) |
 | What is lazzaros spallanzanis theory for spontaneous generation? Read answer... |
| Who was Lazzaro spallanzano? Read answer... |
| What does Lazzarro Spallanzani do? Read answer... |
 | Interesting facts on lazzaro spallanzani? |
| What did lazzaro Spallanzani do? |
| How did lazzaro spallanzani die? |
Copyrights:
 |
 | Scientist. History of Science and Technology, edited by Bryan Bunch and Alexander Hellemans. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lazzaro Spallanzani". Read more |
Mentioned in
