Redi and Pasterur Experiment as Physician

Redi and Pasterur Experiment as Physician. Redi was a physician from Italy who conducted an experiment to prove his disagreement with spontaneous generation theory. The spontaneous generation theory which had been present from the time of Aristotle claimed inanimate objects were able to generate life (Parke, 2014). During the 1600s, microspores were not available hence when the flies laid their microscopic eggs on the meat, the eggs were not visible and later people got to see the maggots.

He performed the experiment in 1665 which sought to determine whether rotting meat spontaneously generated houseflies or not. He began his experiment by placing three pieces of mean in three separate glasses (Parke, 2014). He covered the first container with a paper, left the second one open, and covered the third container with gauze. Therefore, the flies landed on the uncovered container which acted as the control. Since people at the time assumed that air was important in generating life, the container covered with gauze allowed air to get into the container but not the flies (Parke, 2014). The container covered with a paper, on the other hand, did not allow flies to land on the meat and air could not get into the container. The containers were left at room temperature and soon the meat began to rot which attracted fries (Scientus Organization, 2018). The meat that had been left in an open container became covered with maggots while the container covered with a paper and gauze showed no signs of maggots. From the experiment, Redi concluded that the maggots which later became flies did not come from the meat but rather the eggs that had been laid on the meet by the flies (Scientus Organization, 2018). Although the experiment proved that spontaneous generation was incorrect by stating life came from dead objects, the debate did not come to a rest.

Redi and Pasterur Experiment as Physician

Pasterur’s Experiment

Pasterur conducted another experiment to refute spontaneous generation theory. In his experiment, he prepared a nutrient broth equivalent to the one used to make soup. He then poured equal amounts of the broth in two long-necked flasks, one straight and the other bent in form of an “s” (Pommerville, 2013) in order to make sure that all living matter in the broth were killed, he boiled the broth and left the two flasks exposed to air at a room temperature.

Several weeks later, Pasteur made an observation of the two flasks and found out that the content in the flask with a straight neck had been discolored while the flask that had an “s” shaped neck remained the same. From the experiment, Pasteur concluded that it was a result of the germs in the air that the flask with a straight neck got contaminated (Pommerville, 2013). In the other flask, the germs got trapped in the neck hence did not reach the broth hence it remained with the same color. If the spontaneous generation theory was correct, the broth in the two flasks would have become contaminated equally since germs would have generated from the broth (Geison, 2014). The reason as to why the soup in the flask with the curved neck remained uncontaminated was because germs were only capable of coming from other germs. Both Redi’s and Pasterur’s experiment aimed at refuting the spontaneous generation theory. Additionally, the experiments began by coming up with a hypothesis and using a carefully controlled experiment. Based on the outcome of the two experiments, people observed that spontaneous generation theory was incorrect.