SPALLANZANI, LAZARD, a celebrated anatomist and naturalist, was b. at Seandiano, In Modena, Italy. Jan. 12, 1729. After a careful education, lie took clerical orders; ar141 in 1754 he was appointed to the chair of logic, metaphysics, and Greek at Reggio; but soon after this he obtained a chair at Modena, and, refusing the tempting offers made him by the universities of Parma and Coimbra, and the academy of St. Petersburg. gave himself lip to the study of natural history. His attention was directed to the doctrine of generation propounded by Needham and Buffon, which, after careful study and experiment, he overturned, fie then turned his attention to the circulation of the blood, and was the first to follow its course through the intestinal tube, the liver, spleen, ven trieles, pulmonary organs, etc.; "established," according to Sencbier, "the propulsive power of the heart over the blood in the various vessels, demonstrated that the heart never wholly empties itself, explained the various causes which retard the circulation, and the obstacles produced by the weight of the blood." On the re-establishment of the university of Pavia. Spallanzani was appointed (1768) professor of natural history, and keeper of the museum, which he greatly enriched with fishes, crustacea, and testacea, the fruits of his numerous excursions. In 1785, refusing the chair of natural history at
Padua, which had been so admirably filled by rallisuieri. lie accepted the proposal of the archduke Ferdinand to accompany, with doubled salary, the Austrian ambassador to Constantinople (Aug. 22, 1785); and during a residence of 11 months in Turkey found ample materials for study and observation. In 1788 be visited Naples whilst Vesuvius was in eruption, the Lipari isles, and Sicily, in restless prosecution of his scientific labors, and then retired to Pavia, where, refusing the tempting offers of the French directory. he spent the remainder of his life, prosecuting his scientific researches amid bodily sufferings, and died of apoplexy, Feb. 12, 1799. His works, many of the more valuable of which have been translated into English, are ton numerous to mention; but a complete catalogue of them, along with a biography, will be found In the Bio graphic Medicate, vol. vii. Sea also, for the result of his labors, the Eloge, by 31. Alihert, in the de la &dela Medicaid d'Emulation.