Volume 1

Dissertations relative to the natural history of animals and vegetables / Translated from the Italian of the Abbe Spallanzani ... To which are added two letters from Mr. Bonnet to the author.

  • Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 1729-1799.
Date:
1784
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dissertations relative to the natural history of animals and vegetables / Translated from the Italian of the Abbe Spallanzani ... To which are added two letters from Mr. Bonnet to the author. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    34/396 (page 28)
    cules caff in certain internal moulds, he at- tributes the formation of all animated beings. But this theory can no longer fu b fi ft with- out other proofs, for Spallanzani has taken irom it all the fupport it received from the inhabitants of the feminal liquor. His ob- fervations on this fubjeCt, bear fo clofe a refemblance with thofe on the animalcules of infuftons, that I (hall forbear entering into a particular account of them. He has brought irrefragable proofs that they do not fpring from filaments, that they never lofe their tails, and that their fize does not di- minish or their activity increafe in a regular progreffion. He has fhewn, by comparing their properties with the properties of other animals, that they have an indifputable right to be ranked among the productions of the animal kingdom. Buffon defcribes them as furviving feveral days after they have been expofed to the influence of the air, but Spal- lanzani always found that they died in a few hpurs. 1 Concerning narrations thus contradictory, the determination of naturalifts would be different, and each would become a partizan of the French cr Italian philofopher, ac- cording to his opinion of the veracity and Ikill in obfervation of the one or the other, if