SECT. I] EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 57 



discussion begins at Section 14, where it is stated that the embryo is 

 nourished by maternal blood, which flows to the foetus and there 

 coagulates, forming the embryonic flesh. The proof alleged for this is 

 that during pregnancy the flow of menstrual blood ceases; therefore 

 it must be used up on the way out. In Section 15 the umbiHcal cord 

 is recognised as the means by which foetal respiration is carried on. 

 Section 1 7 contains a fine description of development with a very 

 interesting analogy. "The flesh", it is said, "brought together by the 

 spirit, TO TTvevfia, grows and divides itself into members, hke going to 

 like, dense to dense, flabby to flabby, humid to humid. The bones 

 harden, coagulated by the heat." Then a demonstration experiment 

 follows : "Attach a tube to an earthen vessel, introduce through it some 

 earth, sand, and lead chips, then pour in some water and blow through 

 the tube. First of all, everything will be mixed up, but after a certain 

 time the lead will go to the lead, the sand to the sand, and the earth 

 to the earth, and if the water be allowed to dry up and the vessel 

 be broken, it will be seen that this is so. In the same way seed and 

 flesh articulate themselves. I shall say no more on this point". 

 Here again was an attempt at causal explanation, rather than 

 morphological description, in complete contrast to the later work of 



Aristotle. 



Section 22 contains a suggestive comparison between seeds of 

 plants and embryos of animals, but the identification of stalk with 

 umbihcal cord leads to a certain confusion. Perhaps the most inter- 

 esting passage of aU is to be found in Section 29. "Now I shall speak", 

 says the unknown Hippocratic embryologist, "of the characters 

 which I promised above to discuss and which show as clearly as 

 human intelligence can to anyone who will examine these things 

 that the seed is in a membrane, that the umbilicus occupies the 

 middle of it, that it alternately draws the air through itself and then 

 expels it, and that the members are attached to the umbilicus. In a 

 word, all the constitution of the foetus as I have described it to you, 

 you will find from one end to the other if you wiU use the following 

 proof Take 20 eggs or more and give them to 2 or 3 hens to incubate, 

 then each day from the second onwards tiU the time of hatching, 

 take out an egg, break it, and examine it. You will find everything 

 as I say in so far as a bird can resemble a man. He who has not 

 made these observations before will be amazed to find an umbihcus 

 in a bird's egg. But these things are so, and this is what I intended 



