Abstract
IN the issue of NATURE for January 9, Dr. Burdon Sanderson has recorded some experiments on the behaviour of certain organic mixtures boiled for five or ten minutes in flasks which were hermetically sealed during ebullition. He found, as Dr. Bastian had done, that Bacteria appeared in these sealed vessels—not always, but frequently. Dr. Sanderson is, however, careful not to endorse the conclusions which Dr. Bastian has drawn from these experiments. This method of experimenting appears to me to involve two serious sources of error which invalidate them in so far as they are used to support the theory of spontaneous generation.
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ROBERTS, W. Dr. Bastian's Experiments on the Beginning of Life. Nature 7, 302 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007302a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007302a0
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