SECT, i] EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 89 



with whom Galen was largely in agreement. It goes on to describe 

 the anatomy of allantois, amnios, placenta, and membranes with 

 considerable accuracy. The embryonic life consists, it says, of four 

 stages: (i) an unformed seminal stage, (2) a stage in which the tria 

 principia (a concept here met with for the first time) are engendered, 

 the heart, liver and brain, (3) a stage when all the other parts are 

 mapped out and (4) a stage when all the other parts have become 

 clearly visible. Parallel with this development, the embryo also rises 

 from possessing the life of a plant to that of an animal, and the 

 umbilicus is made the root in the analogy with a plant. The embryo 

 is formed, firstly, from menstrual blood, and secondly, from blood 

 brought by the umbilical cord, and the way in which it turns into 

 the embryo is made clearer as follows: "If you cut open the vein 

 of an animal and let the blood flow out into moderately hot water; 

 the formation of a coagulum very like the substance of the liver will 

 be seen to take place". And in effect this viscus, according to Galen, 

 is formed before the heart. 



Galen also taught that the embryo excreted its urine into the 

 allantois, and was acquainted with foetal atrophy. He gave a fairly 

 correct account of the junction of the umbilical veins with the 

 branches of the portal vein, and the umbilical with the iliac arteries, 

 of the foramen ovale, the ductus Arantii and the ductus Botalli. He 

 maintained that the embryo respired through the umbilical cord, 

 and said that the blood passed in the embryo from the heart to the 

 lungs and not vice versa. The belief that male foetuses were formed 

 quicker than female ones he still entertained, and explained as being 

 due to the superior heat and dryness of the male germ. He also 

 associated the male conception with the right side and the female 

 with the left and asserted that the intra-uterine movements are sooner 

 felt in the case of the male than in the case of the female. Dry foods 

 eaten by the mother, he thought, would lead to a more rapid develop- 

 ment of the foetus than other kinds. 



In this account of the Galenic embryology I have drawn not only 

 upon the book on the formation of the foetus, but also upon his 

 v7r6fMV7]/jba, Commentary on Hippocrates, his Trepl alricov av/jLTTTco/naTcov, 

 On the Causes of Symptoms, and his book Trepl %peta? tmv fjuoplcor, On the 

 Use of Parts. It is this latter work that had the greatest influence on the 

 ages which followed Galen's Hfe. In the course of seventeen books, he 

 tries to demonstrate the value and teleological significance of every 



