Studies in normal and abnormal human embryogenesis

Abstract

During the intrauterine stage of life, a heavy toll is exacted from the Human race in the form of abortion and prematurely terminated pregnancy. To assess the wastage from abortion in quantitative terms that are anywhere near the truth is far from possible, as denoted by Tietze (1953). However, indirect and fragmentary evidence suggests that as high as one-fourth to one-third of all gestations may be lost during the first twenty weeks of pregnancy, and another 10% later therein (Volaoras, 1953). Such is certainly a high loss, and efforts to minimise it have not been as successful as those spent in the neonatal and later stages of life.To investigate the.problem, it was clear that the maximal possible information about the various aspects of abortion had to be collected. Over many decades it gradually became known that certain fertilized ova were lost on account of lack of a favourable environment, whereas others carried intrinsically within them the seeds of their destruction. Perhaps the one happy aspect about abortion was its "filter" action, excluding from life - at an early stage - those human beings affected with such malformations as to make future life impossible or unbearable. The thalidomide tragedy caused quite a stir even in the lay mind, when it was realised that some of these malformations were actually iatrogenic and, to say the least, preventable. Then, fresh impetus was given to the research in congenital malformations. Meanwhile modern methods of tissue culture permitted the real probing of human chromosomology, a subject that very soon had its bearings on certain human diseases and congenital abnormalities. Few are the examples in the history of Medicine when so significant information was obtained in such a short time.With all this in mind the present work was planned. It is a study of the "abortion material" collected in a large hospital: The Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion, Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh. The study comprises certain general, anatomical, pathological and cyto-genetic aspects.