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#classical texts

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The book 'On the Generation of Animals' was written by:

Aristotle's contributions to embryology culminated in four books On the Generation of Animals written around 350 BC. There he described development of chick embryos by opening eggs at successive days, observed viviparous dogfish embryos, debated epigenesis versus preformation, and proposed nutritive and formative principles of reproduction. He differentiated male and female contributions and explored inheritance patterns, though mistakenly attributing active form to semen. His empirical observations and comparative approach established embryology as scientific discipline, predating microscopy

Ref: Aristotle, On Generation of Animals; Gilbert, 12th ed., Chapter 1: Classic embryology.