The Origin of Life Debate

Historians of biology and medicine have only recently to 2003 rediscovered the existence of an immensely powerful doctrine, that of "histological molecules". For over a hundred years, from Needham and Buffon's claim of spontaneous generation in 1748 to Charles Darwin's theory of "pangenesis" in 1868, this theory dramatically influenced thinking about the origin of life, the means by which cells are produced, the origin of diseases from cancer to cholera, and how inheritance works. Robert Brown wrote consciously in this tradition in 1828 when he first described Brownian movement. Rudolph Virchow is largely attacking this doctrine in his famous 1858 book "Cellular Pathology". But he needed to do so because the founders of the cell theory, Schleiden and Schwann, were strong supporters of it. By 1875 the doctrine was considered disproved by most biologists and medical researchers, but the winners so thoroughly wrote the histological molecules theory out of the history of science that it has taken 125 years to rediscover its central importance in theories of cells, disease and generation.
This set brings together most of the primary sources, both for and against the histological molecules doctrine. They include Robert Brown's famous 1828 paper announcing the discovery of Brownian movement, Virchow's "Cellular Pathology", Schwann's classic text on which the Cell Theory was based, and a substantial section of Johannes Muller's "Textbook of Physiology". The six volumes also include many papers considered classics in the debates on spontaneous generation and the origin of life by Buffon, Needham, Spallanzani, Joseph Priestley and others, going back to the mid 18th century. The collection provides primary source readings for courses on evolutionary theory, history of biology and history of medicine. It also gives scholars the opportunity to assess the wide-ranging influence of the doctrine of "histological molecules".