The Human Embryo: Aristotle and the Arabic and European Traditions

An international team of scholars trace the tradition of the enquiry into the nature of the embryo over the last 2000 years. The book explores the attitudes of a variety of cultures - Greek, Latin, Jewish, Arabian, Islamic and Christian - and considers how the subject is regarded in terms of medical practice, penitential discipline, canon law, common law and human feeling. It argues that the terms in which the issue were discussed were set down by the Greeks and transmitted through Arabic authors to medieval Europe. Finally, it examines how the beliefs of various cultures and religions relate to the research being carried out in laboratories in the 1990s.

Table of Contents:

Note on the Frontispiece, vii; Contributors, viii; Foreword RICHARD SORABJI, ix; Preface, xi; Introduction: text and context G. R. DUNSTAN, 1; Making a man: becoming human in early Greek medicine HELEN KING, 10; Human is generated by human D. M. BALME, 20; The human embryo in Arabic scientific and religious thought BASIM MUSALLAM, 32; Constantinus Africanus and the conflict between religion and science MONICA H. GREEN, 47; Arabic medicine: the Andalusi context RICHARD HITCHCOCK, 70; The fetus as a natural miracle: the Maimonidean view L. E. GOODMAN, 79; The planets and the development of the embryo C. S. F. BURNETT, 95; Soul, life, sense, intellect: some thirteenth-century problems PAMELA M. HUBY, 113; 'Come d'animal divegna fante': the animation of the human embryo in Dante STEPHEN BEMROSE, 123; The anatomy of the soul in early Renaissance medicine VIVIAN NUTTON, 136. The embryological revolution in the France of Louis XIV: the dominance of ideology L. W. B. BROCKLISS, 158; Policing pregnancies: changes in nineteenth-century criminal and canon law ANGUS McLAREN, 187; The embryo in contemporary medical science PETER R. BRAUDE AND MARTIN H. JOHNSON, 208; Short communication: some fallacies in embryology through the ages MARY J. SELLER, 222; Index, 228.

"This book helps us with the history of the ethics that we must know if we are to deal with the technology of the future." (Independent)

"The book is thoroughly documented, carefully edited and beautifully produced … care has also been taken to make the work readable and accessible to a non-specialist who wants to find out more about the thought of bygone ages concerning matters of 'contemporary concern'." (Bioethics)

"All the chapters are well researched and annotated . . . The text becomes much more gripping as the relationship of contemporary opinion to the views of preceding generations becomes apparent." (British Medical Journal)