Things Come to Life by Henry Harris, Oxford University Press, 拢20, ISBN 0198515383
TAKE one dirty shirt and stuff it into the neck of a vessel containing wheat. Wait 21 days and observe the transformation of grains into mice鈥�
This unusual recipe by the 17th-century alchemist Johannes Baptista van Helmont for the supposed spontaneous generation of life was inspired by Aristotle, and the idea survived right through to the early 20th century, with Henry Bastian, professor of pathological anatomy at University College London, remaining firmly wedded to the concept. By then though, Bastian鈥檚 was a lonely voice. The scientific community had accepted the notion that living organisms can only be created by others of their kind.
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The great French microbiologist Louis Pasteur is usually credited with applying the coup de gr芒ce, by showing that organic solutions remained sterile if kept free of airborne contamination. But like the killers in modern horror films, the idea kept coming back for more, until eventually dispatched by the careful work of the Irish physicist John Tyndall.
In Things Come to Life, Harris, former head of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University, describes the scientific, social and theological context in which the debate evolved. He also gives detailed explanations of the experimental techniques of the main protagonists. It is perhaps a little too detailed for the general reader, but is a fascinating account for microbiologists and historians of science.