THE RISE OF EMBRYOLOGY *97 



THE PERIOD OF HARVEY AND MALPIGHI 



In General. The usual account of the rise of embryol- 

 ogy is derived from German writers. But there is reason to 

 depart from their traditions, in which Wolff is heralded as its 

 founder, and the one central figure prior to Pander and 

 Von Baer. 



The embryological work of Wolff's great predecessors, 

 Harvey and Malpighi, has been passed over too lightly. 

 Although these men have received ample recognition in 

 closely related fields of investigation, their insight into those 

 mysterious events that culminate in the formation of a new 

 animal has been rarely appreciated. Now and then a few 

 writers, as Brooks and Whitman, have pointed out the great 

 worth of Harvey's work in embryology, but fewer Have 

 spoken for Malpighi in this connection. Koelliker, it is true, 

 in his address at the unveiling of the statue of Malpighi, in 

 his native town of Crevalcuore, in 1894, gives him well- 

 merited recognition as the founder of embryology, and the 

 late Sir Michael Foster has written in a similar vein in his 

 delightful Lectures on the History of Physiology. 



However great was Harvey's work in embryology, I ven- 

 ture to say that Malpighi's was greater when considered as a 

 piece of observation. Harvey's work is more philosophical; 

 he discusses the nature of development, and shows unusual 

 powers as an accurate reason er. But that part of his treatise 

 devoted to observation is far less extensive and exact than 

 Malpighi's, and throughout his lengthy discussions he has 

 the flavor of the ancients. 



Malpighi's work, on the contrary, flavors more of the 

 moderns. In terse descriptions, and with many sketches, he 

 shows the changes in the hen's egg from the close of the first 

 day of development onward. 



It is a noteworthy fact that, at the period in which he 



