Lazzaro Spallanzani, one of the great natural philosophers of the eighteenth century, was born in 1729 at Scandiano, and was educated in Reggio and in Bologna where he came under the influence of his cousin Laura Bassi who was professor of mathematics and physics there. He was intended for the law but at the age of 28, having taken holy orders, he became professor of Greek, logic and mathematics in the College of Reggio. It was here that he began to interest himself in biological questions and by correspondence he became associated with Charles Bonnet and Haller in Switzerland. In 1760 he accepted a chair in the University of Modena where he remained eight years. This was one of the most fertile periods of his life for in addition to dissertations on Greek inscriptions, on problems in mathematics and physics he produced his epoch-making works on spontaneous generation, on the regeneration of lost parts and on the circulation of the blood. By the end of the Modena period he was elected F.R.S. and was known as one of the foremost scientists of his time. In 1768 he was appointed by the Empress Maria Teresa to be the Conservator of the Museum of natural history in Pavia and he held this post till his death in 1799. In 1776 he published his great Opuscoli di fisica animale e vegetabile and in 1780 Dissertazioni di fisica animale e vegetabile, works which must compel the most captious critic to range the Italian abbate among the greatest experimental philosophers of all time. In these works he dealt exhaustively with the problems of spontaneous generation, and the origin of the animalcules of infusions, the nature and origin of spermatozoa, the effect of stagnant air on animals and vegetables, the death and resurrection of animals, the nature of moulds, digestion and generation.