i82 EMBRYOLOGY IN THE SEVENTEENTH [pt. ii 



About this time there was some controversy over the circulation 

 of blood, the foramen ovale, etc., in the embryo. From 1700 to 1710, 

 Tauvry and Mery were engaged in a polemic on this subject, and 

 the latter also corresponded with Duverney, Silvestre and Buissiere 

 in a controversy which recalls that of Laurentius and Petreus a 

 hundred years before. Nicholls wrote later on the same subject. 

 Daniel Tauvry was interesting, however, for other reasons. He was 

 an epigenesist, and wrote vigorously against the view that the soul 

 constructed during embryogeny a suitable home for itself. 



Nine years later two books appeared, which form very definite 

 landmarks in the history of embryology. One was Martin Schurig's 

 Embryologia, and the other the Elementa Chymiae of Hermann Boer- 

 haave. 



The former, however, gave to the world no new experiments or 

 observations ; it was the first of what we should now call the typical 

 "review" kind of publication. Schurig saw that he was living at 

 the end of a great scientific movement following the Renaissance, 

 and set himself accordingly for many years to compile large treatises 

 on definite and restricted subjects, taking care to give all references 

 with meticulous accuracy, and to omit no significant or insignificant 

 work. His Spermatologia was the first to appear (in 1720), and it was 

 followed in 1723 by Sialologia (on the saliva), Chylologia (1725), 

 Muliebria (1729), Parthenologia (1729), Gynaecologia (1731) and Haema- 

 tologia (1744). His Embryologia was the last but one of the series. In 

 it he treated compendiously of all the theories which had been 

 advanced about embryology during the immediately preceding two 

 centuries, and his chapters on foetal nutrition and foetal respiration 

 throw a flood of light on to the "intellectual climate" in which 

 Harvey and Mayow worked, providing, as it were, the perishable back- 

 ground of their immortal thoughts. Schurig's bibliography is a very 

 striking part of his book, extending to sixteen pages, and including five 

 hundred and sixty references; it was the first attempt of its kind. 



3-10. Boerhaave, Hamberger, Mazin 



Hermann Boerhaave was a more prominent figure, a Professor at 

 Leyden for many years, and renowned for his encyclopaedic learning 

 on all subjects remotely connected with medicine. His Elementa 

 Chymiae, which became the standard chemical book of the whole 

 period, demonstrates throughout the exceedingly wide outlook of its 



