Lazzaro Spallanzani was an Italian Catholic priest, biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and animal echolocation.
23 Facts About Lazzaro Spallanzani
2.
Lazzaro Spallanzani declined many offers from other Italian universities and from St Petersburg until 1768, when he accepted the invitation of Maria Theresa to the chair of natural history in the University of Pavia, which was then being reorganized.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani became director of the museum, which he greatly enriched by the collections of his many journeys along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
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When his colleague published the remarkable specimen Lazzaro Spallanzani revealed the joke, resulting in wide ridicule and humiliation.
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In 1796, Lazzaro Spallanzani received an offer for professor at the National Museum of Natural History, France in Paris, but declined due to his age.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani's experiment showed that it is not an inherent feature of matter, and that it can be destroyed by an hour of boiling.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani paved the way for research by Louis Pasteur, who defeated the theory of spontaneous generation almost a century later.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani described animal reproduction in his Experiencias Para Servir a La Historia de La Generacion De Animales y Plantas.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani was the first to show that fertilisation requires both spermatozoa and an ovum.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani was the first to perform in vitro fertilization, with frogs, and an artificial insemination, using a dog.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani showed that some animals, especially newts, can regenerate some parts of their body if injured or surgically removed.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani is famous for extensive experiments in 1793 on how bats could fly at night to detect objects and avoid obstacles, where he concluded that bats do not use their eyes for navigation, but some other sense.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani was originally inspired by his observation that tamed barn owl flew properly at night under a dim-lit candle, but struck against the wall when the candle was put out.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani managed to capture three wild bats in Scandiano, and performed similar experiment, on which he wrote :.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani went further by surgically removing the eyeballs of one bat, which he observed as:.
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Lazzaro Spallanzani concluded that bats do not need vision for navigation; although he failed to find the reason.
17.
Lazzaro Spallanzani discovered that bat flight was disoriented when their ears were plugged.
18.
Lazzaro Spallanzani repeated his experiments by using improved ear plugs using turpentine, wax, pomatum or tinder mixed with water, to find that blinded bats could not navigate without hearing.
19.
Lazzaro Spallanzani studied the formation and origin of marine fossils found in distant regions of the sea and over the ridge mountains in some regions of Europe, which resulted in the publication in 1755 of a small dissertation, "Dissertazione sopra i corpi marino-montani then presented at the meeting the Accademia degli Ipocondriaci di Reggio Emilia".
20.
Lazzaro Spallanzani studied and made important descriptions on blood circulation and respiration.
21.
Lazzaro Spallanzani embodied the results of his researches in a large work, published four years later.
22.
Lazzaro Spallanzani was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
23.
Lazzaro Spallanzani was member of Prussian Academy of Sciences, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Gottingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities.