The American zoologist Wheeler, in the past century, 

 wrote about the significance of Wolff's embryo logical works 

 in the following poetic words: "The Siegfried destined to 

 overcome this monstrous theory of emboitement, a theory not 

 only false in itself, but one jealously guarding the problem 

 of development, and preventing all access to it, as the dragon 

 guarded the treasure of the Niebelungen, was CASPAR 

 FRIEDRICH WOLFF. "9 



The contemporary historian of embryology J. Needham also 

 highly evaluated the significance of Wolff's work for 

 refuting the idea of preformation of the embryo. Needham, 

 repeating the expression of Claude Bernard, -10 considered that 

 "this was a fatal blow for the theory of preformation.''^ 



7 . Opinion about the development of science , speech read Octo- 

 ber 24, 1835 at the public meeting of the Academy of 

 Science by Baer. JOURN . MIN. NAR. PROSV., May 1836, 

 pp. 190 - 245 (citation p. 218). 



8. K. E. V. Baer, UBER ENTWICKELUNGSGESCHICHTE DER 

 THIERE. BEOBACHTUNG UND REFLEXION, 1837, v. II, 

 part 3, 7 (footnote) . 



9. W. M. Wheeler, "Caspar Friedrich Wolff and Theoria 

 generationis . " BIOL. LECTURES, Mar. biol . lab. 

 Wood's Hole, 1898 - 99, p. 271. 



10. Claude Bernard, LECONS SUR LES PHENOtyENES I>E LA 

 VIE COMMUNE AUX ANIMAUX ET AUX VEGETAUX. (Paris: 

 J. B. Bailliere et fils, 1878 - 1879), p. 316. 



11. J. Needham, A HISTORY OF EMBRYOLOGY, p. 258. 



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