The Ovary of Eve: Egg and Sperm and Preformation - Softcover

Pinto-Correia, Clara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226669548 ISBN 13: 9780226669540

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1998

Synopsis

The Ovary of Eve is a rich and often hilarious account of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century efforts to understand conception. In these early years of the Scientific Revolution, the most intelligent men and women of the day struggled to come to terms with the origins of new life, and one theory—preformation—sparked an intensely heated debate that continued for over a hundred years. Clara Pinto-Correia traces the history of this much maligned theory through the cultural capitals of Europe.

"The most wonderfully eye-opening, or imagination-opening book, as amusing as it is instructive."—Mary Warnock, London Observer

"[A] fascinating and often humorous study of a reproductive theory that flourished from the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century."—Nina C. Ayoub, Chronicle of Higher Education

"More than just a good story, The Ovary of Eve is an object lesson about the history of science: Don't trust it. . . . Pinto-Correia says she wants to tell the story of history's losers. In doing so, she makes defeat sound more appealing than victory."—Emily Eakin, Nation.

"A sparkling history of preformation as it once affected every facet of European culture."—Robert Taylor, Boston Globe

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The Ovary of Eve is a rich and often hilarious account of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century efforts to understand conception. In these early years of the Scientific Revolution, the most intelligent men and women of the day struggled to come to terms with the origins of new life, and one theory - preformation - sparked an intensely heated debate that continued for over a hundred years. Preformation assumed that, during Creation, God had placed infinite generations of perfect miniature creatures inside their future parents, much like nested Russian dolls. But were these perfect beings in the egg or the sperm? The answer mattered a great deal, because both the Church and the larger society held women accountable for the Fall and Original Sin, as well as for birth defects and failures to conceive, while inheritance of social position and titles, even kingdoms, passed through the male line. The "ovists" debated the "spermists" in palaces and cafes, in churches and at family dinner tables, as the aristocracy, the Church, and the intelligentsia tried to resolve what the ancient Greeks called "the mystery of mysteries". Clara Pinto-Correia weaves the strands of this debate into the cultural and social history of the day and shows why intelligent men and women became committed to a view of life that seems unbelievable to us today.

From Kirkus Reviews:

The origins of humankind have inspired endless speculation in myth, religion, philosophy, and science. In this scholarly volume, Portuguese developmental biologist Pinto-Correia elaborates on the history of one theory. From the mid-17th to the mid-18th centuries, battle lines were drawn between preformationists, who believed that all mankind was conceived in the ovary of Eve, and epigeneticists, who believed that development began de novo in each egg. Within the first camp there was further division between ovists, who believed future generations were encased within the egg like a series of ever-shrinking Russian dolls, and spermists, who saw a similar series of minipersons in the sperm head. Pinto-Correia's point is that the preformationists have gotten short shrift in the historical record, their ideas ridiculed and caricatured. But, she says, you can read today's homage to the genome as preformation reconfigured in the form of the idea that it's all written in the genes. Many will question that conclusion, however: Today's epigeneticists point to complex gene-environment interactions in development. In all fairness, the volume covers much more than an arcane chapter in the history of embryology. There are fascinating details on the evolution of thought in Harvey, Leeuwenhoek, Spallanzani (who preceded Pasteur in showing that spontaneous generation didn't exist), and numerous others. Many were skilled microscopists and experimental scientists who nevertheless reconciled what their eyes saw with what their soul believed. Pinto-Correia also elaborates on the denigration of women that colored many arguments, the importance of measurement and numerology (you could figure out how many Russian dolls you'd need, given that the universe was only 6,000 years old), and so on. (Stephen Jay Gould contributes a foreword.) In short, there is a rich meal to dine on--not to be swallowed at one sitting--but perhaps to inspire other scholar/chefs to stew about. (55 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0226669548
• ISBN 13: 9780226669540
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 420