Scrutinium Physico-Medicum

[4]: 82–3  The published work included testimonials from the distinguished medical scholars Ioannes Benedictus Sinibaldus, Paulus Zachias and Hieronymous Bardi.

[5] In Scrutinium Physico-Medicum Kircher discussed spontaneous generation as the source of the 'worms' which caused the plague, describing experiments he did with rotting meat and with a mixture of soil and water, which produced microscopic creatures.

[1] Kircher theorised that when the ground was opened by caves and fissures, myriads of tiny creatures escaped that carried putrefaction and infected first plants, then the animals that ate them, and eventually, people.

Reporting that “the putrid blood of those affected by fevers... [is] so crowded with worms as to well nigh dumbfound me” he concluded that “Plague is in general a living thing”.

Francesco Redi, a member of the Accademia del Cimento, published Esperienze Intorno alla Generazione degl'Insetti (Experiments on the Generation of Insects) in 1668.

A school of medical thinking grew up around Lange and is work in Germany and elsewhere, convinced that contagion was the method of disease transmission as Kircher had argued.

Kircher's work was discussed by the Royal Society, and English thinkers persuaded by his views included Frederick Slare, Sir Charles Ent and Walter Charleton.