102 EMBRYOLOGY FROM GALEN [pt. ii 



Therefore the generation of the fish embryo begins from the sharp 

 end of the egg like that of birds and channels extend from the heart 

 to the head and eyes and first in them appear the upper parts. 

 As the growth of the young fish proceeds the yolk decreases in 

 amount being incorporated into the members and it disappears en- 

 tirely when development is complete. The beating of the heart, which 

 some call panting, is transmitted through the pulsating veins to the 

 lower part of the belly carrying life to the inferior members. While 

 the young fish are small and not yet fully developed they have veins 

 of great length which take the place of the umbilicus, but as they grow 

 these shorten till they contract into the body by the heart as has 

 been said about birds. The young fish are enclosed in a covering 

 just like the embryos of birds, which resembles the dura mater and 

 beneath it another containing the foetus and nothing else, while 

 between the two there is the moisture rejected during the creation of 

 the embryo". Albert also described ovoviviparous fishes but it is more 

 difficult in that case to tell whether he had himself seen and dissected 

 them. He notes also the prodigality of nature in producing so many 

 marine eggs only destined to be eaten. 



In Books IX and xv he treats of the Galenic views on generation 

 and insists again that there is a seed provided by the female. In 

 Book XVI he gives his opinions about the animation of the embryo, 

 quoting the views of the ancients as given in Plutarch, e.g. Alexander 

 the Peripatetic, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Theodorus and Theo- 

 phrastus, the Peripatetics, Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, Avicenna, and 

 Aristotle, "who saw the truth", but— and it is interesting to notice 

 it — never the Christian Fathers, whose writings must have been well 

 known to him. In discussing the Aristotelian views he compares the 

 menstrual blood to the marble and the semen to the man with a 

 chisel in his hand. 



On the question of epigenesis and preformation, he follows 

 Aristotle almost word for word, using the same analogies, such as 

 the "dead eye" and the sleeping mathematician. Here his scho- 

 lasticism comes out clearly, for in rejecting altogether the theory 

 that one part being formed then forms the next part, he says, not 

 that A would have to be in some way like B, but is not, as Aristotle 

 had, but simply "^Generans et generatum, est simul esset et non esset, 

 quod omnino est impossibile''^ — a high-handed and very unscientific 

 manner of settling the question. In conformity with his theology and 



