SECTION I 



EMBRYOLOGY IN ANTIQUITY 



I -I. Non-Hellenic Antiquity 



Since biological science as a whole was little cultivated in ancient 

 Egypt and the ancient civilisations of Babylonia, Assyria and India, 

 the study of embryology, we may assume, was equally little pursued. 

 Doubtless the undeveloped embryo, 

 whether in egg or uterus, carried 

 with it, for these persons of remote 

 antiquity, some flavour of the ob- 

 scene in the literal sense of the word. 

 But embryology stands in a peculiar 

 relation to the history of humanity, 

 in that even at the most remote times 

 children were being born, and, 

 though the practitioners of ancient 

 folk-medicine might confine their 

 ideas for the most part to simple 

 obstetrics, they yet could hardly 

 avoid some slight speculation on the 

 growth and formation of the embryo. 

 Fig. I illustrates this level of culture. 

 It is a painted and carved door from 

 a house in Dutch New Guinea, taken 

 from de Clercq's book; the original 

 was of yellowish brown wood. The 

 male embryo is clearly shown, but 

 the artist evidently had a hazy con- 

 ception of the umbilical cord. The 

 line passing from the uterus to the head may or may not be merely 

 ornamental. The movement of the foetus in utero played and still 

 plays a large part in the folklore of primitive peoples, as may be read in 

 the exhaustive treatise of Ploss & Bartels. For information concerning 

 god-embryos in primitive religion see Briffault. 



Ancient Indian embryology achieved a relatively high level. 

 Structures such as the amniotic membrane are referred to in the 



Fig, 



I . Painted and carved door from 

 New Guinea (de Clercq). 



