Needham claims the following achievements for this work. His doctrine of omne vivum ex ovo (all life comes from the egg) was the first definite statement against the idea of spontaneous generation. He denied the possibility of generation from excrement and from mud, and pointed out that even worms have eggs. He identified the citricula as the point in the yolk from which the embryo develops and the blastoderm surrounding the embryo. He dismantled once and for all the Aristotelian (semen-blood) and Epicurean (semen-semen) theories of early embryogeny. He settled the long controversy about which parts of the egg were nutritive and which were formative, by demonstrating the unreality of the distinction.
Needham claims the following achievements for this work. His doctrine of omne vivum ex ovo (all life comes from the egg) was the first definite statement against the idea of spontaneous generation. He denied the possibility of generation from excrement and from mud, and pointed out that even worms have eggs He identified the citricula as the point in the yolk from which th.e embryo develops and the blastoderm surrounding the embryo. He dismantled once and for all the Aristotelian (semen-blood) and Epicurean (semen-semen) theories of early embryogeny. He settled the long controversy about which parts of the egg were nutritive and which were formative, by demonstrating the unreality of the distinction.