SECT, i] EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 53 



is produced for the young of vivipara in another part, in the breasts, 

 Nature does this for birds in the egg. The opposite, however, is the 

 case to what people think and what is asserted by Alcmaeoii of 

 Croton. For it is not the white that is the milk, but the yolk, for it 

 is this that is the nourishment of the chick, whereas they think it is 

 the white because of the similarity of the colour". Whether Aristotle 

 was led to this conclusion because of his erroneous ideas about the 

 part played in foetal nutrition by yolk and white respectively or 

 whether he recognised a similarity between yolk and milk on account 

 of their fatty nature, we cannot tell. In any case, his correction of 

 Alcmaeon was in the right direction, and it is interesting to compare 

 the amino-acid distribution in the casein of milk and the vitellin of 

 yolk, as has been done by Abderhalden & Hunter (see p. 261). 



Parmenides asserted a connection between male embryos and the 

 right side of the body and between female embryos and the left side 

 of the body — an idea which, considering its total lack of foundation, 

 has had a very long lease of life in the world of thought. There was 

 much controversy on the question of how foetal nutrition went on ; 

 the atomists, Democritus (born about 460 b.c.) and Epicurus (born 

 about 342 B.C.), said that the embryo ate and drank/>^r 0^. "Democritus 

 and Epicurus hold", says Plutarch, "that this unperfect fruit of the 

 wombe receiveth nourishment at the mouth; and thereupon it com- 

 meth that so soon as ever it is borne it seeketh and nuzzeleth with the 

 mouth for the brest head or nipple of the pappe : for that within the 

 matrice there be certain teats; yea, and mouths too, whereby they 

 may be nourished. But Alcmaeon affirmeth that the infant within 

 the mother's wombe, feedeth by the whole body throughout for that 

 it sucketh to it and draweth in maner of a spunge, of all the food, 

 that which is good for nourishment." It would appear also that 

 Democritus believed the external form of the embryo to be developed 

 before the internal organs were formed. 



1-3. Hippocrates: the Beginning of Observation 



But the foregoing fragments of speculation do not really amount 

 to much. The first detailed and clear-cut body of embryological 

 knowledge is associated with the name of Hippocrates, of whom 

 nothing certain is known save that he was born probably in the 

 forty-fifth Olympiad, about 460 b.c, that he lived on the island of 

 Cos in the Aegean Sea, and that he acquired greater fame as a 



