Heidelberg Science Library

Heidelberg Science Library

Heidelberg Science Library Erich Blechschmidt

The Beginnings of Human Life Springer-Verlag New York Heidelberg Berlin Translated by Transemantics, Inc.

Erich Blechschmidt Bruder Grimm Allee 36 34 Gottingen Federal Republic of Germany Transemantics, Inc. 1901 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20006 USA With 58 Figures and 8 Plates Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Blechschmidt, Erich, 1904- The beginnings of human life. (Heidelberg science library) Translation of Wie beginnt das menschliche Leben. 1. Embryology, Human. I. Title. II. Series. QM601.B5313 612.6'4 77-16658 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form without written permission from Springer-Verlag. 1977 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc. This book was first published by Christiana-Verlag, Switzerland, entitled Wie beginnt das menschliche Leben. 987654321 ISBN-13: 978-0-387-90249-4 e-isbn-13: 978-1-4612-6347-0 DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4612-6347-0

Preface Although a human embryo possesses so much grace that the untutored spectator can only admire it in awe, this minute and humble embryo is still almost unknown to many. For some, it seems to belong to the animal kingdom only; others see in it man in his most primordial and elementary aspect. The early life of man thus has become a problem. The development of man as individual (individual development) begins with fertilization. The following pages, therefore, concentrate above all on the development from the ovum to the embryo. The description given below of the ontogenesis of the human embryo and its early functions has been completely documented by our human-embryological collection. Numerous original photographs and systematically revised drawings were published in 1973 under the title Die praenatalen Organsysteme des Menschen (The Prenatal Organ Systems of Man); the supplementary scientific commentaries were published in 1977 in Biokinetics and Biodynamics of Human Differentiations. A complete series of portrait illustrations is located at the Science Centre in Toronto, Canada. Since how a human ovum develops into a human embryo and further into a newborn cannot be deduced from anatomical examinations on animals nor calculated by formulae, it was necessary to directly study the human germ and its development and demonstrate it by original illustrations. This required many years of patient endeavor, but it led to the conclusion that the differentiations and their molecular processes are biodynamically

Preface ordered, an order more precisely determined by analyzing developmental movements. The results achieved here provided sufficient justification for presenting an account of the present state of our knowledge of human ontogenesis in a monograph that may find interest even beyond the limits of our specialty. He who has used a long life as an investigator to observe, again and again, the yet unborn human being, to consult him, to obtain from him reliable information, cannot take kindly to the conventional concept of evolution. We are not at all convinced that the history ofliving beings on this earth has been nothing but evolution. If development were nothing but evolution, it would be, as the word unmistakably expresses, a process with a single direction, from inside outward, an unfolding and therefore inevitably a continuous progress from the simple to the complex. This, however, can nowhere be demonstrated, not even in ontogenesis. This book, in order to prove that, relies not on schemata but exclusively on original findings.

Contents 1 Introduction 1 Classical Anatomy...... Is Enlarged to Kinetic Morphology 2 Developmental Movements Are Detectable Today 5 Serial Section Reconstructions Yield New Data about the Human Embryo 7 2 3 4 A Proper Concept for Human Embryology 9 A New Concept: Differentiation in Biodynamic Metabolic Fields 9 Adaptation through Growth and Heredity through Propagation 12 The Initial Development of the Ovum 13 Life Processes during the First Cell Differentiations 13 The Individuality of the Germ 16 The Germ Performs Functions 18 Differentiations Are Directional 19 Genes Have Passive Functions 20 Life Processes in the Metabolic Field of the Blastocyst 25 Ontogenesis and Phylogenesis 29 The Error of the So-called Basic Law of Biogenetics 29 Erroneous Conclusions Drawn from Phylogenetic Series 32 Differentiations Are Partial Processes of Individual Development 33

viii Contents 5 6 7 8 Development of Functions 36 The Different Functions of Limiting Tissue and Inner Tissue 36 The Secret of the Center of Organization 42 Each Cell Aggregation Has Formative Functions 46 Teleological Thinking Led to Confusions 50 The Earliest Differentiations Are a Development of Functions 54 The Secret of the Gills 62 Early and Late Functions of the Nervous System 64 The Face between Brain and Heart 73 The Embryo's More Differentiated Developmental Movements 77 The First Breath 77 Early Developmental Movements in the Region of the Viscera 80 The First Grasping Movements 86 Basic Rules of Biodynamic Differentiations 96 Gestures Initiated by Elementary Functions 100 The Hand in the Service of Grasping 102 Physiognomy and Physiognomies 107 Appendix 109 Embryonic Calendar 109 Survey of Developmental Stages 110 Glossary 114 Plates 119