Editing Lazzaro Spallanzani (section)

===Spontaneous generation===
Spallanzani's first scientific work was in 1765 ''Saggio di osservazioni microscopiche concernenti il sistema della generazione de' signori di Needham, e Buffon'' (''Essay on microscopic observations regarding the generation system of Messrs. Needham and Buffon'') which was the first systematic rebuttal of the theory of the [[spontaneous generation]].<ref name="ariatti"/> At the time, the microscope was already available to researchers, and using it, the proponents of the theory, [[Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis]], Buffon and [[John Needham]], came to the conclusion that there is a life-generating force inherent to certain kinds of inorganic [[matter]] that causes living microbes to create themselves if given sufficient time.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roe |first1=Shirley A. |title=John Turberville Needham and the Generation of Living Organisms |journal=Isis |date=1983 |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=159–184 |doi=10.1086/353242 |pmid=6347964 |s2cid=27830790 }}</ref> Spallanzani's experiment showed that it is not an inherent feature of matter and that it can be destroyed by an hour of boiling. As the microbes did not re-appear as long as the material was hermetically sealed, he proposed that microbes move through the air and that they could be killed through boiling. Needham argued that experiments destroyed the "vegetative force" that was required for spontaneous generation to occur. Spallanzani paved the way for research by [[Louis Pasteur]], who defeated the theory of spontaneous generation almost a century later.<ref name="VR1928" />