Francesco Redi was a physician, naturalist, and biologist who is often considered the founder of experimental biology. In his most famous experiments his research refuted the theory of spontaneous generation and is highly regarded as a major achievement in modern science.
Redi’s Life
Redi was born in 1626 in Italy. He went to the University of Pisa and received doctorate degrees in medicine and philosophy. After moving around for awhile he moved to Florence and served at the Medici Court. He passed away in 1697.
Francesco Redi’s Experiments
His most famous experiments refuted the theory of spontaneous generation. Spontaneous generation was a theory about how living organisms formed. It was believed by many scientists that living organisms could create from nonliving matter, and that this happened regularly. Redi argued against this theory in his experiments.
In his first experiments, he took six jars and divided them into two groups. Each group had three jars. In the first jar of each group he placed an unknown object. In the second jar of each group, he placed a dead fish. The third jar of each group help raw veal chunks. The first group of jars were covered with gauze so that no air could get in. The second group of jars was left open. He then waited a few days and found that the jars in the second group, which were left open, had maggots and flies appear.
In Redi’s second experiment he had three jars and placed meat in all of them. One jar was left uncovered, one jar was covered with gauze, and one jar was covered with cork. Flies and maggots appears in the uncovered jar. The jar that had gauze had maggots on the gauze but they did not survive.
How Did Redi’s Experiment Disprove of Spontaneous Generation?
Redi argued that in his experiments maggots only appeared on the open jars, which meant that the maggots came from flies and disapproved of spontaneous generation. Biologist John Needham later challenged these findings in his own experiment, though his is considered flawed and was eventually refuted.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Redi
https://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/4270_Redi_experiment.html