Spallanzani, Lazzaro

He studied in Bologna , studied natural sciences in Reggio , Pavia and Modena . After a trip he made in Switzerland , Turkey , Corfu and Cyprus , he described the most outstanding features of these places in natural-historical and geological respects.

The result of his journey to Naples , Sicily and the Apennines was his work Viaggi alle due Sicilie e in alcune parti degli Apennini ( Pavia , 1792 ), which appeared in a German translation in 1795 . All these results of his travels are very valuable in a natural historical sense.

Spallanzani is famous for his purely physiological discoveries in the field of blood circulation, digestion, frog breeding, observations of the simplest animals and a special sense of navigation in complete darkness (echolocation) inherent in a bat. Of great interest are his experiments on the inhibitory effect of cold on gas exchange in cold-blooded animals, on decapitation of snails with subsequent growth of the head, on the copulation mechanism in frogs, on artificial digestion of gastric juice; he was the first to prove that only sperm have the fertilizing power in the seed. Empirically proved the impossibility of spontaneous generation of microorganisms.

In 1935, the International Astronomical Union named Spallanzani crater on the visible side of the moon .

• The refutation of the theory of spontaneous generation in the experiments of Lazzaro Spallanzani

• Spallanzani, Lazarus // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.