Pasteur disproves spontaneous generation

In 1861 Louis Pasteur published his experiments with swan-necked flasks of broth, which let air in but trapped dust and germs in the curve of the neck. The broth stayed clear for as long as the neck was unbroken, but turned cloudy with microbial growth when the neck was snapped off. The result destroyed the old idea that living organisms arise spontaneously from decaying matter and showed that microbes come from other microbes. It laid the foundation for the germ theory of disease, for pasteurisation and for modern sterile techniques in surgery and the food industry.

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