Fighting foes too small to see / [Joseph McFarland].

  • McFarland, Joseph, 1868-1945
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Fighting foes too small to see / [Joseph McFarland]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    42/318 (page 36)
    lie says were formed under his eyes through the transforming influence of water upon the stems of plants. These old ideas that seem so grotesque and ridiculous in the light of modern information, were no more than the natural outcome of lack of knowl- edge of the life history of the living things consid- ered. No ancient philosopher seems to have had the hardihood to instruct the poor man how to spon- taneously generate a cow, a goat, a fowl or any kind of a creature with which everybody was famil- iar. When they were under consideration the spon- taneous origin was always supposed to have taken place long ago, under conditions that no longer ob- tain, and there now being plenty of them, no fur- ther generation except along well recognized lines occurs. DECLINE OF THE DOCTRINE OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. The wane of the doctrine of the spontaneous gen- eration of life began with the introduction of exact methods of observation and above all with the adop- tion of the experimental method of investigation. This may he dated from the observations of Fran- cesco Redi upon flies and maggots in the seventeenth century.