The spontaneous generation controversy (1700–1860): The origin of parasitic worms

History of Ecological Sciences, Part 46: From Parasitology to Germ Theory

“…It has a good bibliography, but does not cite other authors discussed in this paragraph except Foster. John Farley (1972a, b, 1977, Farley and Geison 1974 Medicine and Science (1959) has good coverage of Chinese medicine, and also covers western medicine to about 1850. Edward Reinhard (1957Reinhard ( , 1958 …”

“…One work, a lengthy paper, discussed what one could learn from layers of dead vegetation in peat bogs, and became a foundation for paleoecology (Egerton 2009:49-52). The other was a book on the alternation of sexual and asexual generations in some invertebrate species, "one of the most illuminating generalizations in the history of biology" (Reinhard 1957:216-220, Foster 1965Farley 1972a:117-119, 1977:58-60, Grove 1990. Alternating generations had previously been discovered in jellyfish, which he verified in Scyphistoma-strobila (Steenstrup1845:11-25).…”

Social Objectivity Under Scrutiny in the Pasteur–Pouchet Debate

“…The issue of the reproduction and generation of organisms was not new to the Academy in 1858. Through the announcement of nine prizes on the subject from 1837 on, the Academy of Sciences had brought about by 1860 a marked growth in scientific knowledge on subjects such as the role of seminal fluid in fertilization, the life cycle of internal parasitic worms, the formation of spores in fungi, the spreading of spores in cryptogamic plants, and the metamorphosis and reproduction of microorganisms (infusoria), among others (Farley 1972). For a number of years, these lines of research in parasitology, embryology or microbiology had afforded adverse results for the advocates of heterogenesis, who had steadily seen the scope of their theory progressively reduced until being limited to infusoria, while the opponents of heterogenesis had seen the field of application of the general law describing the reproduction of higher animals grow in scope (Gálvez 1988, 346-351).…”

A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 30: Invertebrate Zoology and Parasitology During the 1700s

“…Vallisneri was sure that these worms arose from eggs, but how? He accepted the current embôtment theory, that Eve's ovaries contained all of humanity, with each generation being in the eggs of the previous generation, like nested boxes, and he decided that God implanted these parasites in Eve's ovaries after the Fall (Hoeppli 1959:97, 401), or that they were benign residents before and became parasitic afterwards (Farley 1972:101–102, 1977:21), and that they could be transmitted from mother to child through placenta or breast milk (Grove 1990:38). In 1721 he published a book on spermatozoa (partly reprinted in Cristofolini 1968:107–130) in which he postulated that they were “independent organisms or parasites, believing that they have the task of preventing the clotting of the semen” (Bodenheimer 1958:57).…”

“…Later, he discovered his error, and in 1777 he published a correction (both accounts are abstracted in English translation, with illustrations, by Kean, Mott, and Russell [1978, II:L654–657]). He dismissed the ideas of spontaneous generation and embôtment within a host as absurd, and he therefore reluctantly concluded that eggs enter from outside the host (Farley 1972:105–106). As mentioned in Part 28 (Egerton 2008 b ), his eyesight gradually failed, and he switched for a while to botany, but as his sight further declined, he concentrated on theoretical and philosophical biology (Glass 1959:164–170, Gasking 1967:117–129, Bonnet 1971, Anderson 1982, Bowler 1989:60–63).…”