Experiments on the Generation of Insects

Abstract

IN the early days of modern science much pioneer work had to be done in clearing away all manner of crude notions and legends, partly based on ideas and faulty explanations of facts or fables handed down from classical times, and partly on popular notions of later date. More than any writer of his period, Redi, physician to the Court of Florence, and also a poet of considerable eminence, set himself to refute the old doctrine of spontaneous generation, and was mainly instrumental in proving that maggots, &c., did not arise spontaneously in the surroundings where they are met with, but originate from eggs deposited by the parent insect. In fact, Redi accomplished a similar service to science to that performed by Darwin and his coadjutors in our own time, when they gave the death-blow to the analogous doctrine of special creation, though, in the latter case, the task was much more difficult, depending rather on logical inference from facts than on actual experimental demonstration.

Experiments on the Generation of Insects.

By Francesco Redi, of Arezzo. Translated from the Italian Edition of 1688 by Mab Bigelow. Pp. 160. Portrait, facsimile of original title-page (1768), and 29 plates, besides illustrations in the text. (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co.; London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1909.) Price 2 dollars.