Licence: In copyright
Credit: The evolution of life / by H. Charlton Bastian. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![killed by an immersion for only ten minutes in water of 45° or 46° C. [113° or 114-8° F.]. Thus Spallanzani's researches taught him three things : (i) that eggs can withstand a decidedly higher degree of heat than that proving fatal to their parents ; (2), that an analogous difference exists between seeds and plants, in respect to their capacity of withstanding the action of heat; and (3), that seeds and plants can resist higher grades of heat than eggs and animals respectively. In seeking for an explanation of these results, he quickly dismissed—as Burdach did rather later— the utterly improbable notion that the smallness of the germ or egg can act as its safeguard, by render- ing it less amenable to the influence of heat. He inclined rather to the view that the increased power of resistance possessed by seeds and eggs, as com- pared with the organisms from which they proceed, was due to the simplicity of the embryo within the seed or the egg ; and he asks whether the fact of this life being so small and so feeble —being a life which deserves so little the name of life —may not be the reason that seeds and eggs are able to resist heat so much better than developed organisms. He adduces reasons tending to support this view ; and thinks the same kind of explanation is applicable to the greater tolerance of the injurious effects of heat upon seeds and plants, as compared with that shown by eggs and animals. The greater tenacity of life of seeds is only in part due to the fact that the outer coats of most seeds are much harder than those of eggs. Thus the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22651020_0073.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
