I will outline the chapters briefly as a guide to 

 Blyakher's work, since this is a descriptive study which 

 could use some index, and its indices have not been trans- 

 lated into English for logistical reasons. 



In the INTRODUCTION, Blyakher explains that he will 

 give "a detailed account of the history of Russian embryo- 

 logical investigations" to provide "exhaustive evidence 

 (for) 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 of the 

 organic world." Embryology - meaning Russian embryology, 

 of course - fell into three distinct periods, according to 

 Blyakher: that of establishing epigenesis and making 

 embryology possible as a science (Wolff) , that of discover- 

 ing the embryonic layers and establishing the prerequisites 

 for comparative embryological development (Pander and Baer) , 

 and that of evolutionary embryological development (Alexander 

 Kovalevsky and I.I. Mechnikov) . The first two periods form 

 the focus of this volume, while the third is subject of 

 his second volume. The following chapters amass "evidence" 

 for his claim for Russian fatherhood primarily by describing 

 the many accomplishments of native (and adopted) Russians 

 and by showing how these actually were in some essential 

 way Russian accomplishments. 



CHAPTER 1 considers the early period, beginning 

 with the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth century, 

 the time of Peter I's reorganization in Russia. Peter wanted 

 to encourage native-born and trained scientists, Blyakher 

 tells us, and so the ruler established a significant 

 teratological and embryological collection in the Kunstkamera 

 to support native medical studies. Peter I initiated Russian 

 interest in embryology, according to the author. And Mikhail 

 Lomonosov stimulated serious embryological studies, drawing 

 on those teratological and embryological collections. 

 Lomonosov, like Wolff and other followers, began the modern 

 era of experimentation, materialism, empiricism, and histor- 

 ical explanation, Blyakher asserts, without fully explain- 

 ing what he means by each of those recurring terms. Despite 

 his infrequent lapses into enthusiastic excesses, Blyakher 

 convincingly establishes that there was early embryological 



