Article ID: CBB001022378

Spontaneous Generation and Disease Causation: Anton de Bary's Experiments with Phytophthora infestans and Late Blight of Potato (2010)

unapi

Anton de Bary is best known for his elucidation of the life cycle of Phytopthora infestans, the causal organism of late blight of potato and the crop losses that caused famine in nineteenth-century Europe. But while practitioner histories often claim this accomplishment as a founding moment of modern plant pathology, closer examination of de Bary's experiments and his published work suggest that his primary motiviation for pursing this research was based in developmental biology, not agriculture. De Bary shied away from making any recommendations for agricultural practice, and instead focused nearly exclusively on spontaneous generation and fungal development -- both concepts promoted through prize questions posted by the Académie des Sciences in the 1850s and 1860s. De Bary's submission to the Académie's 1859 Alhumbert prize question illustrates his own contributions to debates about spontaneous generation and demonstrates the practical applications of seemingly philosophical questions -- such as the origin of life.

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Authors & Contributors
Crosland, Maurice P.
Turner, R. Steven
Juan Manuel Rodríguez-Caso
Ricardo Noguera-Solano
Rosaura Ruiz-Gutiérrez
Berger, Thor
Concepts
Plant diseases
Agriculture
Potatoes
Biogenesis; origin of life; spontaneous generation
Societies; institutions; academies
Botany
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century, early
20th century, late
20th century
17th century
Places
France
Belfast, Ireland
Sweden
China
Ireland
Great Britain
Institutions
Académie des Sciences, Paris
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