The Survival and Reproduction of Haeckel's Embryo Drawings
Haeckel's embryo drawings, as comparative plates, were at first only copied into biology textbooks, rather than texts on the study of embryology. Even though Haeckel's program in comparative embryology virtually collapsed after the First World War, his embryo drawings have often been reproduced and redrawn with increased precision and accuracy in works that have kept the study of comparative embryology alive. Nevertheless, neither His-inspired human embryology nor developmental biology are concerned with the comparison of vertebrate embryos. Although Stephen Jay Gould's 1977 book Ontogeny and Phylogeny helps to reassess Haeckelian embryology, it does not address the controversy over Haeckel's embryo drawings. Nevertheless, new interest in evolution in and around 1977 inspired developmental biologists to look more closely at Haeckel's illustrations.
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