Evolution and the origin of life / by H. Charlton Bastian.

  • Henry Charlton Bastian
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evolution and the origin of life / by H. Charlton Bastian. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/214 page 8
    to the temperature of 212° F., there is no longer room for doubt. The occurrence of ' Spontaneous Generation' must in this case be admitted as an estabHshed fact, or ' Law of Nature.' But the evidence now in our possession concerning the death-point of heated Living Matter all tends to show that it is killed at a temperature below that of boiling water, as will be seen by the facts recorded in the last essay of this volume. The two previous papers, moreover, contain the records of experiments proving that Bacteria and the'r germs are killed at 140° F.—these being the very organisms that most frequently make their appear- ance in the fluids within closed experimental vessels v/hich have been previously heated to 212° F. In the present aspect of the question, therefore, these three papers contain all the evidence needed for the establishment of the occurrence of ' Spon- taneous Generation.' In the two parts of the first essay, however, I have endeavoured to show that the acknowledgment of this natural origin of Liv- ing Matter carries with it no contradictions, and is indeed in accordance with the present state of scientific knowledge. I have further striven to give.
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