PREFACE 



Embryology occupies a notable position among the 

 biological disciplines of Russian science, as noted by 

 K. A. Timiriazev. 1 Separate stages of the history of Russian 

 embryology are presented in journal articles, collected 

 biographical essays, and commentaries which have accompanied 

 the recently published works of the Russian scientists 

 K. F. Wolff, K. M. Baer, A. 0. Kovalevsky, and I. I. Mechnikov 

 There is no systematic treatise of the history of embryology, 

 either here or abroad. 2 Joseph Needham's HISTORY OF 

 EMBRYOLOGY, which was translated in 1947 into Russian, 3 

 cannot satisfy any exacting reader. (1)4 For exhaustive 

 evidence of the frequently repeated claim that Russia is 

 the fatherland of embryology as a science, that it developed 

 from Russian soil and became one of the most important 

 foundations of the evolutionary and historical view in the 

 organic world, therefore, it is necessary to give a detailed 

 account of the history of Russian embryological investigations 



K(liment) A(rkadevich) Timiriazev, "Istoricheskii metod 



v biologii" (Historical methods in biology) .... SOCH., 



V.VI.M., Selkhozgiz (1939), p. 32. 



This confirmation is correct now only in relation to the 



history of embryology of animals . After the manuscript 



of this present book was given to the press , there appeared 



P(avel) A(leksandrovich) Baranov's monograph, ISTORIYA 



EMBRIOLOGII RASTENII V SVYAZI S RAZVITIEM 



PREDSTAVLENII ZAROZHDENII 0RGANIZM0V (History of 



plant embryology in connection with developmental ideas 



on the generation of organisms) (Moscow: Akademii Nauk, 



1955, 439 pp.) . In the first part of this book its author 



presented the prehistory of the embryology of plants , to 



the nineteenth century, against the background of 



development of general ideas on the generation of 



organisms, both plant and animal (p. 8) . 



J. Needham, HISTORY OF EMBRYOLOGY, translated from 



the English by A. V. Yudinaya, preface by V. P. Karpov 



(IL, 1947) , 342 pp. 



Numbers in square brackets are related to the comments at 



the end of the book . 



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