 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Carnegie Human Embryo Collection Becoming a Science Franklin P. Mall Exceptional Scientist Staging Expansion New Direction Molecular New Era |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Biologists of the 17th and 18th century were split into two camps: the homunculists, who believed that the tiny baby was contained n the sperm (above), and the ovists, who believed the baby to be in the ovaries. |
There was no lack of conjecture in
classical times about the development of the human embryo. Aristotle
inferred that the embryo develops from a mixture of the male seminal fluid
and the female menstrual blood, but that the male provided only the
stimulus for growth. Five hundred years later, the Greek physician Galen
diminished the role of the male even further by suggesting that the tiny
prefabricated embryo in the female is merely "unshelled" by contact with the
male. Galen's theory remained in vogue for fifteen hundred years. Not until
the mid-1800s did scientists learn that the embryo is assembled from
components contributed equally by male and female.
Embryology as an experimental science didn't emerge until the 19th century. Of the field's pioneers-Wilhelm Roux, Hans Driesch, and Wilhelm His-only His performed comparative studies on the human embryo. Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Muller, authors of a landmark book on human embryology published by the Carnegie Institution in 1987, call His "the Vesalius of human embryology. "His's goal was no less than to work out a complete account of development. His method: to describe and evaluate the series of forms that characterize the growth of the embryo. Although His never realized his grand ambition of starting an institute devoted to human embryology, he did inspire another generation of embryologists to carry on the work. One of those scientists was Franklin Paine Mall. |