Aristotle, Buddhist scripture and embryology in ancient Mexico: building inclusion by re-thinking what counts as the history of developmental biology.

It has not gone unnoticed in recent times that historical writing about science is heavily Eurocentric. A striking example can be found in the history of developmental biology: textbooks and popular science writing frequently trace an intellectual thread from the Greek philosopher Aristotle through 19th century embryology to 20th century genetics. Few in our field are aware of the depth and breadth of early embryological thinking outside of Europe. Here, I provide a series of vignettes highlighting the rich history of embryological thinking in Asia and Latin America. My goal is to provide an entertaining, even provocative, synopsis of this important but under-studied topic. It is my hope that this work will spur others to carry out more thorough investigations, with the ultimate goal of building a more inclusive discipline.

Profesor Doctor Aníbal Humberto Daniel Castañé Decoud: un catedrático asunceno de prolongada gestión institucional / Professor Doctor Aníbal Humberto Daniel Castañé Decoud: a paraguayan professor with prolonged institutional management

Así como la memoria institucional permite valorar hechos rescatables y evitar pasados errores, la trayectoria académica, imitando la vida misma, sobrelleva tiempos apacibles y tormentosos. En este contexto, y cercanos al centenario de nuestra Facultad y de las tradicionales Cátedras de Anatomía Normal e Histología y Embriología, fue emprendida la tarea de evocar a quienes asumieron sucesivamente la máxima responsabilidad en esta última desde 1920 hasta mediados de los 70s. De esta manera, este artículo concluye con tal saga biográfica haciendo foco en el Profesor Doctor Aníbal Humberto Daniel Castañé Decoud, el catedrático asunceno quien, merced a su desempeño académico, pudo enfrentar y superar variados desafíos durante su prolongada gestión (AU)

As well as the institutional memory allows appreciating ancient facts and avoiding past faults, the academic trajectory, as life by itself, undergoes calm and turbulent times. Within this context, and close to the centenary of our Faculty and the ensuing traditional Chairs of Normal Anatomy and Histology and Embryology, a remembrance of those professors who successively assumed the highest responsibility in the latter one from 1920 to mid-70s was carried out. In this way, this article concludes that biographic saga focusing on Professor Doctor Aníbal Humberto Daniel Castañé Decoud, the Paraguayan professor who, endowed by his academic background, could face and overcome varied challenges during his prolonged management (AU)

Doctor Tomás Ocaña. Una trayectoria prolífica en años turbulentos / Doctor Tomás Ocaña, a prolific trajectory in turbulent years

Excediendo el contexto polémico que signó la trayectoria académica del Dr. Tomás Ocaña, este trabajo evoca su prolífica carrera en años turbulentos, preñados de divisiones y desencuentros, nada inusuales en nuestro país. Marginando cualquier improcedente apasionamiento, se considera que su paso por una Facultad y una Cátedra, próximas ambas a cumplir su Centenario, no puede ser ignorado.

Exceeding the controversial context signing Tomas Ocaña academic performance, this paper recalls his prolific career in troubled years, full of divisions and misunderstandings, nothing unusual in our country. Leaving aside any unruly passion, his passing through a Faculty and a Cathedra, both near to become centenaries, cannot be ignored.

Classics revisited: Miguel Fernández on germ layer inversion and specific polyembryony in armadillos.

BACKGROUND: Miguel Fernández was an Argentinian zoologist who published the first account of obligate polyembryony in armadillos. His contribution is here discussed in relation to his contemporaries, Newman and Patterson, and more recent work. FINDINGS: Fernandez worked on the mulita (Dasypus hybridus). He was able to get early stages before twinning occurred and show it was preceded by inversion of the germ layers. By the primitive streak stage there were separate embryonic shields and partition of the amnion. There was, however, a single exocoelom and all embryos were enclosed in a common set of membranes comprising chorion towards the attachment site in the uterine fundus and inverted yolk sac on the opposite face. He showed that monozygotic twinning did not occur in another armadillo, the peludo (Chaetophractus villosus). CONCLUSIONS: Fernández's work represented a major breakthrough in understanding how twinning occurred in armadillos. His work and that of others is of intrinsic interest to zoologists and has a direct bearing on the origin of monozygotic twins and birth defects in humans.

Preformismo y epigénesis en la historia de la embriología / Preformism and epigenesis in the history of embryology

El preformismo concibe el desarrollo del embrión a partir de la existencia de un embrión preformado contenido en el espermatozoide o en el huevo; mientras que la epigénesis considera que este se origina a partir del desarrollo de un principio amorfo, como consecuencia de los cambios que se producen con la fecundación. A tales efectos, se realizó el presente donde se hace una valoración crítica de ambas teorías, desde el origen de la embriología en la Grecia antigua, como resultado de la interpretación del dualismo filosófico aristotélico, hasta la contemporaneidad(AU)

Preformism conceives the development of embryo from the existence of a previously formed embryo in the sperm or in the egg; while epigenesis considers that it originates from the development of an amorphous principle, as consequence of the changes that take place with fecundation. To achieve this, the present investigation was carried out where a critical evaluation of both theories is made, from the origin of embryology in the old Greece, as a result of the interpretation of the Aristotelian philosophical dualism, to the present time(AU)

Aristóteles: pionero en el estudio de la anatomía comparada / Aristotle: pioneer in the study of comparative anatomy

Aristóteles (384-322 a. n. e.); filosofo prodigioso, de amplios conocimientos, investigador incansable y enciclopédico, con sentido crítico y didáctico, resumió y abarco la sabiduría antigua, enriqueciéndola con sus valiosas observaciones, experiencias y descubrimientos, fundador de numerosos campos del saber universal entre ellos; el estudio de la Lógica, la Historia natural, la biología, la anatomía comparada, la zoología, la embriología, y la botánica.

Aristotle (384-322 b. c. e.), prodigious philosopher who possessed extensive encyclopedic knowledge, a tireless researcher with critical and didactic sense, summarized and spanned ancient wisdom, enriching it with his valuable observations, comments, and discoveries. He was the founder of numerous areas of universal knowledge, which included the study of logic, natural history, biology, comparative anatomy, zoology, embryology, and botany.

Contribuciones de Wilhelm his a la embriología humana / Contributions of Wilhelm his to human embryology

Wilhelm His (1831-1904) gran anatomista y embriólogo suizo, profesor de la cátedra de anatomía de la Universidad de Basilea y Universidad de Leipzig. His, realizó el primer intento de estudiar los distintos estadios del embrión humano en su totalidad. Para tal fin, introdujo importantes avances tecnológicos que permitieron una comprensión más detallada del embrión humano, marcando un hito en el desarrollo de la embriología como ciencia. En este trabajo se resumen las principales contribuciones de Wilhelm His en el campo de la embriología humana. Uno de sus principales aportes fue la invención del micrótomo en 1866, el cual permitió reconstruir el embrión a partir de secciones histológicas. Otro de sus grandes inventos fue el denominado embriógrafo, instrumento que posibilitó la visualización de cortes histológicos en bajos aumentos y su reconstrucción sobre un papel. Además, fue pionero en intentar seleccionar los embriones humanos colectados presumiblemente en orden de su desarrollo. Dividió el desarrollo humano en estadios, estableciendo normas a partir de las relaciones entre forma y tamaño característicos de cada estadio. Gran parte de sus descubrimientos sobre el desarrollo del embrión humano se encuentran plasmados en el trabajo titulado Anatomie der Menschlichen Embryonen (1880-1885). La noble tarea de dilucidar la anatomía del embrión humano fue posible gracias este conjunto de innovaciones tecnológicas y metodológicas y su perseverante trabajo. Debido a sus grandes aportes en el campo de la embriología se le confiere el nombre de "Vesalius de la embriología humana".

Wilhelm His (1831-1904), a great Swiss anatomist and embryologist, professor of anatomy at the university of Basel and the university of Leipzig. His, made the first attempt to study the different stages of the total human embryo. For that purpose he introduced important technological advances that allowed a more detailed understanding of the embryo, setting a landmark in the development of embryology as a science. This paper summarizes the main contributions of Wilhelm His in the field of human embryology. One of his major contributions was the invention of the microtome en 1866, which allowed the reconstruction of the embryo from histological sections. Another one of his great inventions was the so-called embryograph, an instrument that allows viewing histological sections at low magnification and reconstructing them on paper. He was also a pioneer in attempting to select human embryos presumably collected in their order of development. He divided human development into stages, establishing standards from the relations between the shape and size characteristic of each stage. A large part of his discoveries on the development of the human embryo is found in his work titled Anatomie der Menschlichen Embryonen (1880-1885). The noble task of elucidating the anatomy of the human embryo was possible thanks to a set of technologicals and methodological innovations and his persevering work. Because of his great contributions in the field of embryology he is given the name of "Vesalius of human embryology".

Mathematics Ab Ovo: Hans Driesch and Entwicklungsmechanik.

One of the factors leading to the creation of embryology as a modern discipline at the end of the 19th century was Wilhelm Roux's formulation of the program of Entwicklungsmechanik (developmental mechanics). A look into the work of Hans Driesch, an equal contributor to developmental mechanics, may shed further light on this process. For Roux, developmental mechanics was an anatomical science, but for Driesch it was associated with a mathematical and physical approach to the natural world. Likewise, Roux used the concept of mechanics as an analogy, but Driesch used it literally. Driesch's generation had been trained in a pedagogic context that emphasized mathematics and physics, which may explain why he went a step further than Roux to state that a true "mechanics" of development required the reduction of morphogenetic problems to the known laws of physics. It is argued here that this difference in background is behind the enthusiastic adoption and further development of Roux's program by Driesch's generation, a generation that conceived Entwicklungsmechanik to be the reduction of embryological processes to "the laws of matter in motion." This same mathematical and physical mindset would underscore Driesch's later construction of entelechy as a regulating factor in embryogenesis, through mathematical analysis grounded on the notion of mathematical functions.

Especies locales, mercado y transporte en las investigaciones embriológicas: el estudio de la poliembrionía en armadillos a principios del siglo XX / Local species, the market, and transportation in embryological research: the study of polyembryony in armadillos in the early twentieth century

Se examina en un caso concreto la afirmación general de la importancia de las redes de comunicación y la movilidad de las cosas para la ciencia. De qué forma esto jugó un papel relevante en las investigaciones sobre la embriología de ciertas especies de armadillos a principios del siglo XX? Como intentamos mostrar, el acceso a las hembras preñadas de esas especies silvestres y los tiempos en el transporte hasta el laboratorio fueron cuestiones substanciales en los inicios de esas investigaciones. Las estrategias para obtener muestras en el campo y la temporalidad de ciertos fenómenos, los circuitos comerciales en los que participan los organismos estudiados y su trasformación en el laboratorio permiten vislumbrar aspectos de cómo trabajaron y qué problemas enfrentaron esos científicos.

The article examines the general affirmation that communication networks and mobility are important to science by examining how these factors played a relevant role in one specific case, that is, research on the embryology of certain species of armadillos in the early twentieth century. As we show, access to pregnant females of the species and transport time from the wild to the laboratory were significant issues in the early days of such research. The strategies used to obtain field samples, the temporality of certain phenomena, the commercial circuits of which the organisms under study were a part, and the transformations they underwent in the laboratory all afford a glimpse at some aspects of how these scientists approached their work and what problems they faced in producing new knowledge.

[Local species, the market, and transportation in embryological research: the study of polyembryony in armadillos in the early twentieth century]. / Especies locales, mercado y transporte en las investigaciones embriológicas: el estudio de la poliembrionía en armadillos a principios del siglo XX.

The article examines the general affirmation that communication networks and mobility are important to science by examining how these factors played a relevant role in one specific case, that is, research on the embryology of certain species of armadillos in the early twentieth century. As we show, access to pregnant females of the species and transport time from the wild to the laboratory were significant issues in the early days of such research. The strategies used to obtain field samples, the temporality of certain phenomena, the commercial circuits of which the organisms under study were a part, and the transformations they underwent in the laboratory all afford a glimpse at some aspects of how these scientists approached their work and what problems they faced in producing new knowledge.

[Contemporaneous history: complex techniques of assisted reproduction]. / Historia contemporánea: las técnicas complejas de reproducción asistida.

The work begins with historical considerations about the development of embryology at the beginning of the twentieth century and the vast advance obtained to the arriving of complex assisted reproductive techniques. Afterwards it is reviewed the development of variants and possibilities of the techniques. Finally, it is proposed four historic periods regarding the development of complex assisted reproductive technologies.

[A mistake, not a Darwin's one, about teeth formation in Aristotle's physics]. / Un error que no es de Darwin, sobre la formación de los dientes en la Física de Aristóteles.

An isolated paragraph translated from Greek, separated from its previous and following ones, made Darwin believe that Aristotle made a mistake about comprehending teeth formation in life beings, but he pointed out accurately, at the same time, that the philosopher's idea about the aim that rules material changes was, as a precedent to the "natural selection", a dark concept.

Marcello Malpighi: the father of microscopic anatomy.

Biographical data of Malpighi to justify naming him "the father of microscopic anatomy", as he used the microscope, soon after its invention, to study and discover and accurately describe many biological, particularly anatomical, structures. Although he utilized the microscope as a scientific instrument, his ideas, innovations and discoveries caused such an opposition that the microscope could be considered as Malpighi's weapon to start a scientific revolution. He was a naturalist for whom the "natural world, known and experienced scientifically, was all that existed". He was also a "cardiocentrist", who opposed Galen's "hepatocentrism". Several anatomical structures known eponymically to honor Malpighi are listed followed by their synonyms. Malpighi is another example of a genius as an extraordinary man who stood on the shoulders of giants, such as Galilei, Hans and Zacharias Janssen, Borelli, Harvey, B. Massari, among others.