Metamorphoses of man and the lower animals / by A. de Quatrefages ; translated by Henry Lawson.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Metamorphoses of man and the lower animals / by A. de Quatrefages ; translated by Henry Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    inevitable consequence is to throw doubt on all the hitherto implicitly accepted facts regarding virginal generation. Indeed_, the revision of most of these facts appears to me to be quite necessary. Before accepting the word ]iaTtlienogenesis, it is evidently essential to be perfectly certain that the reproductive body is an ovum and not a hud, enclosed in a more or less solid envelope. In order to do this^ it is necessary to refer to the origin of the formation in question. To my mind_, every reproductive body which has not the form of a germinal vesicle^ with its germinal spot, belongs to the second category; it should possess this double and fundamental character in order to be placed in t}i.G first one. To judge from what we already know^ the result of this revision will be to diminish considerably the number of instances of true parthenogenesis. Will it erase them all from the book of science ? I think not. In this regard I have much pleasure in coin- ciding with those confreres whose opinions I opposed in the preceding pages. Without going so far as Owen^ Huxley,, or Lubbock, I think that a series of intermediate stages exists between the ovum and the bud.* We have seen that such is the case with Lubbock before they were publisbed, in order to ascertain the accuracy of bis own views. * It is evident that, according to my view, there is quite an investigation to be made ; an investigation which is essential to the progress of science. Hence it will be understood how much pleased I was to see Mr. Lubbock engaged in this labour, in the last writings of his which I have seen, and which tend to bear out some of the views which I have already put forward Notes on the Generative Organs and on the Formation of the Egg in the Annulosa,—Philosophical Transactions, 1861).