Page 34 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije
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A BABEL OF THEORIES 31
magically alive, although structurally deficient. Imagina-
tion played more part in such a theory than deduction
from tangible evidence. Thus we find that the physician,
Bichat, who made a name for himself in science before he
died in 1802, at the early age of 31, could not accept such
an explanation and declared the living parts of a living
being to be the organs formed of the tissues.
A great step was gained when Virchow thought he saw
the cell in the process of being built up, that is, structured,
and thus jumped to the conclusion that it is self-existent
and the unit of life, from which proceed all organised
forms of developed beings.
But here a difficulty arose, for the cell proved as transi-
tory as any other anatomical element. Thus many
scientists returned to the belief in primordial structureless
matter, and opinion oscillated between the views held by
cellularists and protoplasmists, as the opposing factions
were designated. Utter confusion reigned among the
conflicting theories which struggled to explain how a
purely chemical compound, or mixture of such com-
pounds, could be regarded as living, and all sorts ofpowers
of modification and transformation were ascribed to it,
with which we need not concern ourselves.
Instead, let us consider the second problem that faced
Bechamp and Pasteur when they started work, namely,
whether this mysterious living substance, which went by so
many names, could arise independently, or whether pre-
existmg^life is always responsible. It is hard to realise,
nowadays, the heated controversy that raged in the past
around this perplexing mystery. The opposing camps of
thought were mainly divided into the followers of two
eighteenth-century priests, Needham, who claimed that
heat was sufficient to produce animalcule from putres-
cible matter, and Spallanzani, who denied their appear-
ance in hermetically sealed vessels. The first were named
Sponteparists from their belief that organised life is in a
constant state of emergence from chemical sources, while
the second were named Panspermists from their theory of