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Title: The Ovary of Eve: Egg and Sperm and Preformation by Clara Pinto-Correia, Clara Pinto Correia, Stephen Jay Gould ISBN: 0-226-66952-1 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: December, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Mystery, history, science......
Comment: For the longest time, humans did not understand reproduction. Maybe they still don't. According to archeomythologists like Marija Gimbutas (THE GODDESS) humans first believed they came into existence spontaneously from the Goddess. After all, they could empirically detect that babies came from female bodies so why shouldn't a great big female goddess be the source of all life. With the arrival of Indo-Europeans in old Europe came the belief that the source of life was God the Father. After all, didn't the Bible say God made Adam and Eve and later on planted the baby Jesus in Mary? Her womb was merely a vessal to carry him (Zeus!! if she had been his real mother he would have been at least half human).

The second millenium of the Common Era produced a new twist on an old way of thinking. Renaissance men, being devoutly religious, still believed the source of all life was male, but now they sought to demonstrate this "truth" scientifically.

The "father of insemination" Spallanzani, demonstrated with frogs that male sperm was a requisite for the production of progeny. Correia tells of Spallanzani and his research in her amusing chapter "Frogs with boxershorts." But the Italians weren't the only scientists interested in sperm. Dutch scientists like Nicholas Hartsoeker (the heart searcher with the microscope), Antoni van Leeuwenhock, and Swammerdam fiddled with fleas and tulips and "advanced" the theory of spermism--that preformed little characters (homunculi) were planted in females (think penises) and then grew into babies. The female was still merely the vessal for rearing these perfectly formed progeny (think kangaroo pouch).

Dr. Clara Pinto Correia, professor of developmental biology says the theory of preformation was still being discussed in the 19th Century. Although the jacket of THE OVARY OF EVE insists men and women were engaged in the study of preformation, the truth according to Correia is that this was a male-insprired activity largely driven by the belief that males were the source of life.

Preformation was a wrong turn down a dead-end street. Usually historians tell us the story of scientific sucessesses, but what makes this book so interesting is that Correia tells us the amusing and heart-breaking story of the losers. And, these losers were a pretty impressive bunch of guys. Many of them were geniuses we know for other reasons, who were failures on spermism/preformation front, but sucessful elsewhere. This is a fascinating, readable and wonderful story that involves demons, dragons and Dracula. I recommend THE OVARY OF EVE to anyone who loves science and a good mystery.