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feverishly wrote down obscure remarks in a kind of scrawled shorthand. But these words meant that every one of the flasks which had been only corked, not sealed, was alive with little animals! Even the corked flasks which had been boiled for an hour, "were like lakes in which swim fishes of all sizes, from whales to minnows."

"That means the little animals get into Needham's flasks from the air!" he shouted. "And besides I have discovered a great new fact: living things exist that can stand boiling water and still live—you have to heat them to boiling almost an hour to kill them!"

It was a great day for Spallanzani, and though he did not know it, a great day for the world. Spallanzani had proved that Needham's theory of little animals arising spontaneously was wrong—just as the old master Redi had proved the idea was wrong that flies can be bred in putrid meat. But he had done more than that, for he had rescued the baby science of microbe hunting from a fantastic myth, a Mother Goose yarn that would have made all scientists of other kinds hold their noses at the very mention of microbe hunting as a sound branch of knowledge.

Excited, Spallanzani called his brother Nicolo, and his sister, and told them his pretty experiment. And then, bright-eyed, he told his students that life only comes from life; every living thing has to have a parent—even these wretched little animals! Seal your soup flasks in a flame, and nothing can get into them from outside. Heat them long enough, and everything, even those tough beasts that can stand boiling, will be killed. Do that, and you'll never find any living animals arising in any kind of soup—you could keep it till doomsday. Then he threw his work at Needham's head in a brilliant sarcastic paper, and the world of science was thrown into an uproar. Could Needham really be wrong? asked thoughtful men, gathered in groups under the high lamps and candles of the scientific societies of London and Copenhagen, of Paris and Berlin.