38 THE THEORY OF CHEMICAL EMBRYOLOGY [pt.i 



of the myxoedematous pig foetuses of western America in the work 

 of Smith. 



But all practical applications, how valuable soever, must give 

 place to the increase of knowledge itself, and therefore the physico- 

 chemical history of embryonic development, from the egg-cell to the 

 loosing of the individual into the activity of post-natal life, is to be 

 the theme of this present book. "The history of a man for the nine 

 months preceding his birth", said S. T. Coleridge, "would probably 

 be far more interesting, and contain events of far greater moment 

 than all the three-score and ten years that follow it." 



