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| English | Translation
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William Harvey (1578-1657) | c.1630 | “Omne vivum ex ovo” | Latin (original)
“Every living thing from an egg” [attributed] | [4] |
Lorenz Oken (1779-1851) | 1805 | “Nullum vivum ex ovo! Omne vivum e vivo!” | Latin (original)
“No living thing from an egg! Every living from the living!” | English (translation) | [2] |
Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) | 1858 | “Omnis cellula e cellula” | Latin (original)
“Every cell of the cell” | English (translation) | [3] |
Henry Bastian (1837-1915) | 1860s | Employed the term "biogenesis", independently, in his unpublished writings, to mean "life-origination or commencement". |
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Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) | 1870 | “The hypothesis that living matter always arises by the agency of pre-existing living matter, took definite shape; and had, henceforward, a right to be considered and a claim to be refuted, in each particular case, before the production of living matter in any other way could be admitted by careful reasoners. It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine—that living matter may be produced by not living matter—the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.” | [5] |
William Thomson | c.1876 | “Dead matter cannot become living matter without coming under the influence of matter previous alive.” | (Ѻ) |
Henry Bastian (1837-1915) | 1871 | “A word of explanation seems necessary with regard to the introduction of the new term archebiosis. I had originally, in unpublished writings, adopted the word biogenesis to express the same meaning—viz, life-origination or commencement.
But in the mean time the word biogenesis has been made use of, quite independently, by a distinguished biologist [Huxley], who wished to make it bear a totally different meaning. He also introduced the term abiogenesis.
I have been informed, however, on the best authority, that neither of these words can—with any regard to the language from which they are derived—be supposed to bear the meanings which have of late been publicly assigned to them. Wishing to avoid all needless confusion, I therefore renounced the use of the word biogenesis, and being, for the reason just given, unable to adopt the other term, I was compelled to introduce a new word, in order to designate the process by which living matter is supposed to come into being, independently of pre-existing living matter.” | [6] |
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William Rossiter (c.1836-c.1900) | 1879 | “Biogenesis: the origin of life from life only: opposed to abiogenesis.” | [1] |