Biography of john needham

John Needham was an English naturalist, biologist, and Catholic priest, best known for defending the theory of spontaneous generation and for being the first clergyman to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in On the other hand, he was particularly renowned for his dispute with the French philosopher Voltaire about miracles, and for a linguistic theory of the chronology of Bible based on a statue, supposedly Egyptian.

Despite his failure to affirm the existence of spontaneous generation, his contributions proved useful to other biologists, and his contributions influenced the explanation of the cell theory. He was one of four children born to lawyer John Needham and Margaret Lucas. His father died when he was little.

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According to some biographies of john needham, he studied at the English College in Douai, in northern France, between and FromNeedham devoted himself to teaching at a university in Cambrai, France. In he was ordained a secular priest and supported himself first as a teacher and then set out to accompany the young English Catholic noblemen on the great tour.

During that year, he read about microscopic organisms, which sparked a great interest in natural science. Then, inhe moved to England and took the position of assistant teacher at a Catholic school near Twyford, Winchester. He moved to Lisbon, Portugal, to teach; during his stay in Portugal he managed to carry out the first investigations of him.

In particular, he worked with the organs of the squid. For health reasons, he had to move again to England, in While at Twyford, he made microscopic observations of contaminated wheat, this being, along with squid investigations, the subjects of his early work. Inat the invitation of the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc de BuffonNeedham examined fluids extracted from the reproductive organs of animals and infusions of plant and animal tissues.

Both Buffon and Needham made different observations whose results revealed the presence of blood cells under their microscopes, which Buffon called «organic molecules. Thanks to these discoveries Needham was recognized as an empirical scientist. Needham claimed that an hour of boiling would damage the vegetative force in the broth and prevent spontaneous generation from occurring.

In addition, Needham heard air rushing into the sealed containers when he opened them. He claimed that this showed that the air inside the flasks had been damaged in some manner. The rush of air was actually due to the heating of the glass as the seal was made. To counter Needham's arguments, Spallanzani conducted additional experiments. To show that the vegetative force if it existed was not damaged, he boiled broth for an hour and then left it exposed to the air.

When he examined it a few days later, microorganisms had appeared. This showed that the broth was still capable of supporting life. To show that the air in the containers was not damaged, he designed a special flask with a long skinny neck that could be sealed very quickly. When he opened this container, no air rushed in. Therefore, the air could not have been damaged as Needham argued.

Despite Spallanzani's experiments, Needham and many other scientists remained firmly convinced in the spontaneous generation of microorganisms. It was not until Louis Pasteur 's experiments in the nineteenth century that the question was finally settled. In addition to his scientific work, Needham was also well-known for his writings on religion.

Inhe was elected to the Royal Societythe oldest scientific society in Britain. In the same year, he moved to Brussels, Belgium, where he became the director of the Academy of Sciences. He died in Brussels in Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

Biography of john needham: John Needham (born September

January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia. Science Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps John Turberville Needham.

John Turberville Needham gale. The embryo was not preformed but predetermined. Two kinds of physical force were the building blocks of all matter. In each embryo a specific combination of these elements was contributed by each parent. This combination produced a unique vibratory motion which simultaneously molded the growing embryonic tissue into new shapes and changed their chemistry.

Thus Needham considered the organism on physical, chemical, and biological levels, an approach through which the mechanist-vitalist controversy was later transcended. Original Works. Secondary Literature. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia.

Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Scientific advance is not simply a collection of successful experiments; sometimes notable accomplishments stem from acknowledging others who went wrong. This was Needham's role in the development of cell theory. AroundNeedham carried out his first experiments; from there, he reacted to his theory of spontaneous generation.

Biography of john needham: John Turberville Needham FRS (10

First, he conducted the experiments with lamb broth and later with contaminated wheat in containers. The experiments consisted of briefly boiling a mixture of lamb broth and then cooling the mixture in an open container to room temperature. Afterwards, he sealed the jars and, after a few days, observed the presence of microbes. Needham established from his observations that microorganisms do not grow from eggs.

He most strongly defended the theory of spontaneous generation according to which living organisms develop from "non-living" matter at the microscopic level. According to Needham, this experiment managed to show that there was a vital force that produced a spontaneous generation; from there the English biologist strongly defended his own theory of abiogenesis and the origin of life.

In the yearNeedham succeeded in establishing his own theory of spontaneous generation, and he differed from Buffon in his combinations of random denial of mathematically countable genetic traits. In addition, he challenged the findings of the Italian naturalist Francesco Redi, who in had designed a scientific experiment to test spontaneous creation.

After his results, he thought that insects could not be born from pollution, doubting the theory of spontaneous generation. In this sense, Needham believed in the tradition of Aristotle and Descartes, only that he created his own spontaneous generation or the so-called "epigenesis". According to Needham the embryo develops from an egg that has not been differentiated; In other words, there is no existence of any organ or structure, but on the contrary, the embryo's organs are formed from nothing or through interaction with the environment.

Building on John Needham's experiments, a few years later, Spallanzani designed a series of experiments in order to discuss Needham's experiments. After looking at the microorganisms found in the broth after opening the container, Needham believed that these results showed that life arises from non-living matter. The experiments on spontaneous generation did not end, because inSpallanzani boiled the same hermetically sealed lamb sauce and after opening the jars he did not find the microorganisms that Needham had found at the time.

The explanation the scientists managed to decipher was that Needham's sterilization technique had been flawed; the boiling time of his experiment was not long enough to kill all the microbes in the broth.