Louis Pasteur is popularly known as the "father of microbiology". He is responsible for crushing the doctrine of spontaneous generation. He performed experiments that showed that without contamination, microorganisms could not develop. Under the auspices of theFrench Academy of Sciences, he demonstrated that in sterilized and sealed flasks nothing ever developed, and in sterilized but open flasks microorganism could grow.
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Louis Pasteur
Written by Agnes Ullmann
Louis Pasteur, (born December 27, 1822, Dole, France—died September 28, 1895, Saint-Cloud), French chemist and microbiologist who was one of the most important founders of medical microbiology. Pasteur’s contributions to science,technology, and medicine are nearly without precedent. He pioneered the study of molecular asymmetry; discovered that microorganisms cause fermentation and disease; originated the process ofpasteurization; saved the beer, wine, and silkindustries in France; and developedvaccines against anthrax and rabies.
Pasteur’s academic positions were numerous, and his scientific accomplishments earned him France’s highest decoration, the Legion of Honour, as well as election to the Académie des Sciences and many other distinctions. Today there are some 30 institutes and an impressive number of hospitals, schools, buildings, and streets that bear his name—a set of honours bestowed on few scientists.
Spontaneous generation
Fermentation and putrefaction were often perceived as being spontaneous phenomena, a perception stemming from the ancient belief that life could generate spontaneously. During the 18th century the debate was pursued by the English naturalist and Roman Catholic divine John Turberville Needham and the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, count de Buffon. While both supported the idea ofspontaneous generation, Italian abbot and physiologist Lazzaro Spallanzani maintained that life could never spontaneously generate from dead matter. In 1859, the year English naturalist Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species, Pasteur decided to settle this dispute. He was convinced that his germ theory could not be firmly substantiated as long as belief in spontaneous generation persisted. Pasteur attacked the problem by using a simple experimental procedure. He showed that beef broth could be sterilized by boiling it in a “swan-neck” flask, which has a long bending neck that traps dust particles and other contaminants before they reach the body of the flask. However, if the broth was boiled and the neck of the flask was broken off following boiling, the broth, being reexposed to air, eventually became cloudy, indicating microbial contamination. These experiments proved that there was no spontaneous generation, since the boiled broth, if never reexposed to air, remained sterile. This not only settled the philosophical problem of the origin of life at the time but also placed on solid ground the new science of bacteriology, which relied on proven techniques of sterilization and aseptic manipulation.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topi...is-Pasteur
Lastly, the theory of biogenesis was created by the ancient Greeks (but they didn't coin that term). They believed that living things could spontaneously come into being from nonliving matter, and that the goddess Gaia could make life arise spontaneously from stones – a process known as Generatio spontanea.
So it has been proven that life can not be created from things that are not already living.
(pester tibs via pm if you need invite) 
![[Image: tmPmhjd.jpg]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com%2FtmPmhjd.jpg)
