Epigenesis/Preformation(ism)

Alessandro Ottaviani

2020-01-01

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Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth century, epigenesis and preformationism were presented in An Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine, Biology and allied Sciences as: “epigenesis is in biology, the theory that holds the embryo to be the result of the union of the male and female elements, and the fully formed organism the result of a gradual process of differentiation, in distinction to the theory of encasement, preformation, or evolution, which held the embryo to pre-exist in a minute form within the germ”.