He completed degrees in medicine and philosophy at the University of Pisa. Redi was inspired by the work of William Harvey, who correctly described blood circulation around the body. It led him to develop his own experimental work. His most famous work was a paper entitled, Esperienze Intorno alla Generazione degl'Insetti Experiments on the Generation of Insects which he published in This work provided evidence against the spontaneous generation theory.
The spontaneous generation theory, which claims living things can form from non-living objects, had been put forward by Aristotle and had been widely accepted for centuries. People believed that maggots would just emerge from rotting meat. In the experiment Redi prepared three groups of jars, each with a pieces of meat inside them.
One group of jars was covered with gauze, one group was left open, and one group was completely sealed. In the group of jars that were left open, Redi found maggots on the meat. Redi noticed that in the jars that were completely sealed, there were no maggots. In the group of jars that were covered in gauze, he noticed that there were no maggots on the meat, but maggots did appear on top of the gauze. This experiment provided evidence which refuted the spontaneous generation theory.
He showed that maggots came from eggs laid by flies. For example, in reference to his work on spontaneous generation, Redi concluded omne vivum ex vivo "All life comes from life".
It's interesting to note that despite his experiments, Redi believed spontaneous generation could occur, for instance, with intestinal worms and gall flies.
Altieri Biagi; Maria Luisa Lingua e cultura di Francesco Redi, medico. Florence: L. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance.
Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph. Chemistry Expert. Helmenstine holds a Ph. She has taught science courses at the high school, college, and graduate levels. Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter. Updated September 09, He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Pisa , graduating on 1 May A year later, Redi moved to Florence and registered at the Collegio Medico.
There he served at the Medici Court as both the head physician and superintendent of the ducal pharmacy and foundry. Redi was also a member of the Accademia del Cimento, which flourished from — It was during this decade that Redi produced his most important works. In Redi wrote his Osservazioni intorno alle vipere to his friend Lorenzo Magalotti, secretary of the Accademia.
Redi performed countless experiments on the effects of snakebites, discovering that venom was only effective when introduced into the bloodstream via a bite.
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