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History of Embryology
Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)
o Shifted from superstition & conjecture toward observation
o Systematic observations of embryo
o Multiple ways of reproduction
Oviparous – egg layers (birds, reptiles, fishes); egg formed inside
the body
When fertilized egg passes through the reproductive tract,
those with yolk glands will cover it with a shell
The shell hardens when it moves out of the body in contact
with air
Viviparous – life bearers (mammals); embryo develops in the uterus
with different coverings, nourished by female
Ovoviviparous – egg layer + life bearer
Animals that produce eggs but retain them inside the female
body until hatching
Fertilized eggs retained within the mother to complete their
development
Embryos obtain nourishment from the egg yolk
Young are fully developed when they hatch and are released
from mother
Galen (130-200 AD)
o Learned the structure of relatively advanced fetus
o Wrote that the body makes new blood as the supplies are used up
o Minute dimensions resisted serious analysis
o Development of microscope allowed study of early stages
William Harvey
o Studied reproduction in chicks & deer
o First to explain how the heart pumps blood through blood vessels
Marcello Maligphi
o Gave details of chick development
o Father of microsurgical anatomy, histology, physiology, and embryology
o Observed the formation of the chick’s heart & blood vessels
o First to describe capillaries
o Scientists later used his descriptions as a basis for the Theory of
Preformation
Miniature organism is present in the sperm/ egg
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
o “animalcules” in the semen, tiny preformed human
o Homunculus – very small human, miniature individual, “animalcules”,
found in the semen
o This “homunculus” (miniature individual) – led to theory of preformation
o Theory of preformation – form of living things exist prior to development
found in either
Sperm
Egg
o Led to 2 camps
Spermists
Ovists
o Note that Hamm and Leeuwenhoek saw the first human sperm\
o Spermists vs Ovists
Spermists : sperm contained the new individual in miniature and
was nourished in the ovum
Ovists : Ovum contained the minute body, stimulated to grow by
seminal fluid
Charles Bonnet (ovist)
o Discovered parthenogenesis – reproduction from an ovum without
fertilization, usually found in invertebrates & lower plants
Pathenogenetically developed insect eggs
Parthenogenesis in aphids, which proved that asexual reproduction
of offspring was possible
o Suggested that the eggs of all females possessed germs of subsequent
generations of an infinite series of preformed organism
(why he is an ovist)
Kaspar Friedrich Wolff
o Concept of morphogenesis; concept of epigenesis, which contradicted
theory of preformation
Epigenesis – embryonic development occurs through progressive
remodeling and growth
Morphogenesis – development of structure out of structure
o Wolffian body – embryonic organ on each side of the vertebral column
o Wolffian cyst – in one of the broad ligaments of the uterus near the ovary
and uterine tube
o Wolffian duct – immature (rudimentary) organ in female, the duct system
leaving the testis in male which include ejaculatory duct, seminal vesicle
etc.
Karl von Baer
o Von Baer’s Law – the more general basic features of any animal group
appear earlier in development than do the special features that are
peculiar to different members of the group
As the embryo of an animal develops, its features become farther
from others
Germ layer theory: demonstrated the existence of germ layers in
embryos
Significance couldn’t be grasped until cellular basis of animal
structure was known
o Baer’s law of embryology
General characteristics of the group to which an embryo belongs
develop before special characteristics.
General structural relations are likewise formed before the
most specific appear.
The form of any given embryo does not converge upon other definite
forms, but separates itself from them.
The embryo of a higher animal form never resembles the adult of
another animal form, such as one less evolved, but only its embryo.