- Francesco Redi
Francesco Redi (February 18/19, 1626–
March 1 ,1697 ) was an Italianphysician .Born in
Arezzo ,Tuscany , to a family of nobility, he is most well-known for hisexperiment in 1668 which is regarded as one of the first steps in refuting "spontaneous generation " - a theory also known as Aristotelianabiogenesis . At the time, prevailing wisdom was thatmaggot s formed naturally from rotting meat. In the experiment, Redi took eight jars, which he divided in two groups of four: in the first jar of each group, he put an unknown object; in the second, a dead fish; in the last, raw chunk of veal. Redi took the first group of four jars, and covered the tops with finegauze so that only air could get into it. He left the other group of jars open. After several days, he saw maggots appear on the objects in the open jars, on which flies had been able to land, but not in the gauze-covered jars.He continued his experiments by capturing the maggots and waiting for them to metamorphose, which they did, becoming common flies. Also, when dead flies or maggots were put in sealed jars with dead animals or veal, no maggots appeared, but when the same thing was done with living flies, maggots did appear.
Redi was also a
poet , his best known work being " [http://books.google.com/books?id=iE8sAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Bacchus+in+Tuscany&source=web&ots=FaoGt90E8H&sig=FJPjZXOOwdk8dNcQW2dZrE1rPbA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA6,M1 Bacchus in Tuscany] ".A crater on
Mars was named in his honor.External links
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12687b.htm Francesco Redi] entry in the
Catholic Encyclopedia
* [http://dz-srv1.sub.uni-goettingen.de/cache/toc/D265536.html "Esperienze intorno"]
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