Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
foam,
pangenes
foam,
pangenes
A
B
soul, genome
C
germinal cell
germinal cell
F
IGURE
32. The conceptions of heredity. A:
The Hippocratic conception is holis-
tic and continuist. The entire body is reproduced through foam or pangenes.
B:
The Aristotelian conception is reductionist and discontinuist. The body is a lat-
eral excrescence that is formed from the soul or genome.
C:
Ontophylogenesis does
not come into either of these two schemes. The body is formed from a germinal
cell. It is a part of it but it does not carry the total representation of it.
very important consequence: it implies that characteristics acquired
are inherited. Since the parts of the body can be modified by the
way of life of the organism, the foam which comes from these parts
might also be supposed to carry these acquired modifications. This
leads Hippocrates to envisage the possibility of the organism having
a role in hereditary transmission. For example, in the case of children
born to deformed parents he writes, “
But when there is some disease
involved, and the four innate species of humour from which the seed
is derived, form sperm which is not complete, but deficient in the
deformed part, it is not in my opinion anomalous that the child
should be deformed similarly to the parent
” (OG 11.1).
