A Conceptual History of Modern Embryology

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. The Rise of Classical Descriptive Embryology

   • Frederick B. Churchill

   Pages 1-29

3. Laurent Chabry and the Beginnings of Experimental Embryology in France

   • Jean-Louis Fischer

   Pages 31-41

4. The Origins of Entwicklungsmechanik

   • Jane Maienschein

   Pages 43-61

5. Curt Herbst’s Contributions to the Concept of Embryonic Induction

   • Jane M. Oppenheimer

   Pages 63-89

6. Spemann Seen through a Lens

   • Margaret Saha

   Pages 91-108

7. Reminiscences on the Life and Work of Johannes Holtfreter

   • Johannes Holtfreter

   Pages 109-127

8. The Conceptual and Experimental Foundations of Vertebrate Embryonic Cell Adhesion Research

   • Gerald B. Grunwald

   Pages 129-158

9. The Philosophical Background of Joseph Needham’s Work in Chemical Embryology

   • P. G. Abir-Am

   Pages 159-180

10. Induction and the Origins of Developmental Genetics

    • Scott F. Gilbert

    Pages 181-206

11. Boris Ephrussi and the Synthesis of Genetics and Embryology

    • Richard M. Burian, Jean Gayon, Doris T. Zallen

    Pages 207-227

12. Concepts of Organization the Leverage of Ciliate Protozoa

    • Jan Sapp

    Pages 229-258

13. Back Matter

    Pages 259-266

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"Glory to the science of embryology!" So Johannes Holtfreter closed his letter to this editor when he granted permission to publish his article in this volume. And glory there is: glory in the phenomenon of animals developing their complex morphologies from fertilized eggs, and glory in the efforts of a relatively small group of scientists to understand these wonderful events. Embryology is unique among the biological disciplines, for it denies the hegemony of the adult and sees value (indeed, more value) in the stages that lead up to the fully developed organism. It seeks the origin, and not merely the maintenance, of the body. And if embryology is the study of the embryo as seen over time, the history of embryology is a second-order derivative, seeing how the study of embryos changes over time. As Jane Oppenheimer pointed out, "Sci­ ence, like life itself, indeed like history, itself, is a historical phenomenon. It can build itself only out of its past. " Thus, there are several ways in which embryology and the history of embryology are similar. Each takes a current stage of a developing entity and seeks to explain the paths that brought it to its present condition. Indeed, embryology used to be called Entwicklungsgeschichte, the developmental history of the organism. Both embryology and its history interpret the interplay between internal factors and external agents in the causation of new processes and events.

• animals
• biochemistry
• biology
• development
• Drosophila
• Embryo
• embryology
• evolution
• genetics
• Invertebrate
• morphology
• protozoa
• roots
• tissue
• Vertebrate

• Department of Biology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, USA

  Scott F. Gilbert

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