SECT. I] EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 45 



Bhagavad-Gitd. Susriita believed that the embryo was formed of a 

 mixture of semen and blood, both of which originated from chyle. 

 In the third month commences the differentiation into the various 

 parts of the body, legs, arms and head, in the fourth follows the 

 distinct development of the thorax, abdomen and heart, in the sixth 

 are developed hair, nails, bones, sinews and veins, and in the seventh 

 month the embryo is furnished with any other things that may be 

 necessary for it. In the eighth there is a drawing of the vital force 

 to and from mother and embryo (is this comparable with the 

 Hippocratic eXKeiv? see Peck) which explains why the foetus is not 

 yet viable. The hard parts of the body are derived from the father, 

 the soft from the mother. Nourishment is carried on through vessels 

 which lead chyle from mother to foetus. (For further details see 

 Vullers.) Ancient Chinese embryology was very similar, if we 

 may judge from Hureau de Villeneuve; Maxwell & Liu and von 

 Martuis. 



Egyptian medicine did not venture on embryological speculation, 

 or so it would seem from the writings which have come down to 

 us — the Ebers medical papyrus does not once mention the embryo 

 (Brugsch) . But there are points of interest as regards Egypt in this 

 connection. The Egyptians were responsible for one of the greatest 

 helps in systematic embryological study, namely, the discovery of the 

 artificial incubation of the eggs of birds. The success of this process was 

 to have so obvious an effect on embryology and the abortive attempts 

 to bring it to completion were so frequent in the West right up to 

 the nineteenth century a.d. that it is remarkable to find artificial 

 incubation practised "probably", in Cadman's words, "as far back 

 as the dawn of the Old Kingdom, about 3000 B.C." It is doubtful 

 whether the very remote date could be supported by Egyptological 

 evidence, for, according to Hall and Lowe, hens were not introduced 

 into Egypt from Mesopotamia or India until the time of the eighteenth 

 dynasty {ca. 1400 b.g.) when there was much intercourse with the 

 East (cf Queen Tiy and the Tell-el-Amarna correspondence) : before 

 then the Egyptians had only goose or duck's eggs. Artificial incubation 

 is certainly as old as Diodorus Siculus and Pliny, for both of them 

 refer to the practice, the latter in connection with a curious piece of 

 ancient sympathetic magic. " Livia Augusta, theEmpresse," says Pliny, 

 "wife sometime of Nero, when she was conceived by him and went 

 with that child (who afterwards proved to be Tiberius Caesar) being 



