32 TABOO AND GENETICS 



carries the young until birth, and must not 

 lead us to imagine that the ancients actually 

 separated the germ and somatic cells in their 

 thinking. 



A modern version of this old belief was the 

 idea advanced by Harvey that the ovum con- 

 sisted of fluid in which the embryo appeared 

 by spontaneous generation. Loeuwenhoek's 

 development of the microscope in the 17th 

 century led immediately to the discovery of the 

 spermatozoon by one of his students. At the 

 time, the " preformation theory " was probably 

 the most widely accepted — i.e., that the adult 

 form exists in miniature in the egg or germ, 

 development being merely an unfolding of these 

 preformed parts. With the discovery of the 

 spermatozoon the preformationists were divided 

 into two schools, one (the ovists) holding that 

 the ovum was the container of the miniature 

 individual, the other (animalculists) according 

 this function to the spermatozoon. According 

 to the ovists, the ovum needed merely the 

 stimulation of the spermatozoon to cause its 

 contained individual to undergo development, 

 while the animaliculsts looked upon the sperma- 

 tozoon as the essential embryo container, the 

 ovum serving merely as a suitable food supply or 

 growing place. 



^^ This nine-hved notion of male supremacy in 

 inheritance was rather reinforced than removed 



