126 EMBRYOLOGY IN THE SEVENTEENTH [pt. ii 



"But because somethings, (according to our experience) and those 

 of great moment and consequence, are much otherwise than hath 

 been yet delivered, I shall declare to you what dayly progress is made 

 in the egge, and what parts are altered, especially about the first 

 dayes of Incubation; at which time all things are most intricate, 

 confused, and hard to observe, and about which authors do chiefly 

 stickle for their own observations, which they accomodate rather to 

 their own preconceived perswasions (which they have entertained 

 concerning the Material and Efficient Causes of the generation of 

 Animals) than to truth herself. 



"Aldrovandus, partaking of the same error with Aristotle, saith 

 (which none but a blind man can subscribe to) that the Yolk doth 

 in the first dayes, arise to the Acute Angle of the Egge ; and thinks 

 the Grandines to be the Seed of the Cock; and that the Pullus is 

 framed out of them, but nourished as well by the yolk as the white ; 

 which is clean contrary to Aristotle's opinion, who conceived the 

 Grandines to conduce nothing to the fecundity of the egge. Volcherus 

 Goiter delivers truer things, and more consonant to Autopsie, yet his 

 three Globuli are meer fables. Nor did he rightly consider the 

 principle from whence the Foetus is derived in the Egg. Hieronymus 

 Fabricius indeed contends, that the Grandines are not the seed of 

 the cock, and yet he will have the body of the Chicken to be framed 

 out of them (as out of its first matter) being made fruitful by the seed 

 of the cock. He likewise saw the Original of the Chicken in the Egge; 

 namely the Macula, or Cicatricula annexed to the membrane of the 

 Yolke but conceived it to be onely a Relique of the stalk broken off, 

 and an in-firmity of blemish onely of the Egge, and not a principle 

 part of it. Parisanus hath plentifully confuted Fabricius his opinion 

 concerning the Chalazae or Grandines, and yet himself is evidently 

 at a loss in some certaine circles and points of the Principle parts 

 of the Foetus (namely the Liver and the Heart) and seems to have 

 observed a Principium or first Principle of the Foetus, but not to 

 have known which it was, in that he saith, that the Punctum Album 

 in the Middle of the Circles is the Cocks Seed out of which the Chicken 

 is made. So that it comes to pass that while each of them desire to 

 reduce the manner of the Formation of the Chicken out of the Egge 

 to their own opinions they are all wide from the mark." 



Before discussing how Harvey put them right, however, there are 

 a number of other matters to be mentioned. Parisanus' work was 



