Henry Charlton Bastian
Henry Charlton Bastian was an English physiologist and neurologist.
Biography
Bastian was born at Truro, Cornwall and graduated from University of London in 1861. He obtained his M.D. in 1866. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1868 and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1870.In 1867, Bastian was elected Professor of Pathology and Assistant Physician at UCL Medical School and successively became Professor of Clinical Medicine at UCL Medical School. In 1868, he became assistant physician to the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, then full physician in 1887. He served at the National Hospital until he retired in 1912.
He was an advocate of the doctrine of archebiosis. He believed he witnessed the spontaneous generation of living organisms out of non living matter under his microscope and therefore argued against the concept of germ theory. He promoted a theory of "heterogenesis", a process by which existing living beings give birth to wholly different forms. Bastian's criticism of the germ theory of disease has been linked to the theory's initially slow impact in the UK. The term biogenesis was coined by Henry Bastian.