Everything about Lazzaro Spallanzani totally explained
Lazzaro Spallanzani (
January 10,
1729 -
February 12,
1799) was an
Italian biologist whose research of
biogenesis paved the way for later discoveries by
Louis Pasteur.
Biography
He was born in
Scandiano,
Italy (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's 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
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 researched the theory about the
spontaneous generation of
cellular life in 1768. His experiment proved that microbes come from 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
lizards, can regenerate some parts of their body if injured or surgically removed. He is also famous for extensive experiments on the navigation in complete darkness by bats, where he concluded that they've sensory capacities that he couldn't explain (and described by modern science as
echolocation).
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).
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