- John Needham
Infobox Scientist
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birth_date =10 September 1713
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death_date =30 December 1781
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nationality = English
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field =biology
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footnotes =John Turberville Needham FRS (
10 September 1713 –30 December 1781 ) was an Englishbiologist andRoman Catholic priest.He was first exposed to '
natural philosophy ' while in seminary school and later published a paper which, while the subject was mostly about geology, described the mechanics of pollen and won recognition in theBotany community.He did experiments with gravy and later tainted wheat that seemed to show that life was able to be generated from non-living material, or
abiogenesis (spontaneous generation).Lazzaro Spallanzani repeated the experiments but this time covering the containers which contained the gravy and wheat (which Needham did not do), and the living organisms which appeared in Needham's original experiments did not appear. Needham argued that air was essential for the life, including those formed from spontaneous generation and that this air had been excluded in the experiments of Spallanzani, therefore destroying the 'vegetative force'. Spallanzani eventually won out. Another experiment Needham did was boil chicken broth and seal it up. Usually boiling kills bacteria, yet micro organisms still appeared. Victorious, Needham suggested that there was a life force that produced spontaneous generation.He is frequently believed to be an Irish
Jesuit , a myth which was created byVoltaire during a feud regarding spontaneous generation in which Voltaire was against Needham and his theories.He was a member of the
Royal Society , having become a member in1768 . He was the first Catholic priest to become a member.External links
* [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9055165/John-Turberville-Needham Encyclopaedia Birtannica]
* [http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Needham.html Biography at at Science World]
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