Introduction

Early History

Needham versus Spallanzani

Worms, Molecules, and Evolution

Note on Terminology

Why Another Study of the Spontaneous

Generation Debates?

1 Spontaneous Generation and Early Victorian Science

The Standard Story of the British Debates

Bastian and Burdon Sanderson

Criticisms of Bastian by Lankester and Roberts

The Germ Theory of Disease

The Role of Heat-Resistant Spores

Major Victorian Scientists through the 1860s

2 "Molecular"Theories and the Conversion of Owen and Bennett

Brownian Movement and Histological Molecules

Owen's Role in Developing Ideas on

Spontaneous Generation

John Hughes Bennett and "Histological Molecules"

Owen's Change and the Darwinians

Bennett's Conversion to Spontaneous Generation

Further Response to Owen's Conversion

3 Bastian as Rising Star

Bastian's Background

Bastian Enters the Spontaneous Generation Debate

Wallace and Darwin Discuss Bastian

Further Support for Bastian

4 Initial Confrontation with the X Club: 1870-1873

Huxley's Tightrope Act

Huxley's Attitude toward Young Men of Talent

Huxley Turns against Bastian

Brownian Movement and Other Rhetorical Devices

The Younger Darwinians

Bastian, Huxley, and the Royal Society

E. Ray Lankester and Bastian

5 Colloids, PleomorphicTheories, and Cell Theories: A State of Flux

Thomas Graham and Colloids

Conservation of Energy and Correlation of Forces

Cell Theory and the Demise of

Histological Molecules

Brownian Movement Revisited

Life Cycles in Infusorial Monads

Pleomorphist Theories of Bacteria

6 Germ Theories and the British Medical Community

The Cattle Plague of 1865-66 and Germ Theories

Tyndall, the Germ Theory, and the

Medical Community

Support in the Medical Community for Bastian

The Pathological Society Debate of April 1875

The Physiological Society

7 Purity and Contamination: Tyndall's Campaign as the Final Blow

Tyndall's A Priori Commitments

Embarking on the Quest and Recruiting Support

The Exact Sciences versus the Biomedical Sciences

The X Club and the Royal Society

Spores: Tough Allies to Kill

Convincing Pasteur: Urine Proves a Weak Ally

Conclusions

Epilogue, 1880 through 1915

Glossary

Timeline

Cast of Characters

Notes

Sources

Index

Author Photo: Credit: Paul Quackenbush

James E. Strick is Assistant Professor of Biology at Arizona University.