Generation
Subtitle: the 17th century scientists who unravelled the secrets of sex, life and growth
By: by Matthew Cobb.
Edition: 1st U.S. ed.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Pub.
Published: 2006
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 333
ISBN-13: 9781596910362
Subjects: Conception -- Research -- History -- 17th century; Reproduction -- Research -- History -- 17th century
Description: "Generation is the story of the exciting, all but forgotten decade when four men - Jan Swammerdam, the son of a Protestant apothecary; Nils Stensen (also known as Steno), a Danish anatomist who first discovered the human tear duct; Reinier de Graaf, the attractive and brilliant son of a rich and successful Catholic architect; and Antoni Leeuwenhoek, a self-taught draper - dared to challenge thousands of years of orthodox thinking about where life comes from. By meticulous experimentation, dissection, and observation with the newly invented microscope, they showed that like breeds like, that all animals come from an egg, and that there are millions of tiny, wriggling "eels" in semen. At last, the building blocks were in place - although, in one of the great ironies of science, it would be another 150 years before someone finally put all the pieces together to explain how babies are born." "Including previously untranslated documents, Generation interweaves the personal stories of these scientists against the backdrop of the Dutch "Golden Age.""--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: In the beginning; title: French connections; title: Insects in Italy; title: The testicles of women; title: The rules and theorems of generation; title: Life and death; title: Man comes not from an egg; title: From generation to genetics; title: Epilogue; title: Dramatis personae; title: Chronology; title: Note on dating.