This week’s Between the Lines column at the BMJ is on “H Charlton Bastian (1837-1915)—emeritus professor of the principles and practice of medicine at University College London and physician to the National Hospital in Queen Square”, whom Dalrymple says was angered by “the refusal of the Royal Society (of which he was a fellow) to publish his researches into the spontaneous generation of bacteria.”

Read the column here (purchase required)