LESKY, Erna,
Die Zeugungs- und Vererbungslehren der Antike und ihr Nachwirken.
Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz / Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden, 1950. 201p. Sewn. Unopened. Series: Abhandlungen der Geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, Jahrgang 1950, Nr. 19. (Rare). This ‘work is (…) a monument of German scholarship. (…) The enquiry is undertaken from the point of view of the history of medicine, a wise decision which lends it direction and gives it a setting in a wider context. Dr. Lesky is to be congratulated on so handling her special subject as not to leave out of sight its bearing on the general history of culture. (…) The starting point of the enquiry is Magna Graecia at the turn from the sixth to the fifth century B.C., because it was then that Alcmaeon cut sufficiently free of cosmogonical speculation to ask the biological question, whence comes the seed in man. After Alcmaeon and the Pythagoreans, the Hippocratic writers supply the next great source. Then it is the turn of Aristotle, the greatest figure in the whole history of biology, whose influence dominated later antiquity and the Middle Ages. Finally, Galen and the Arabs come up for discussion. (…) The main topics handled by the various schools throughout the sever or eight centuries of active Greek speculation were three: the nature and potentialities of the seed, the determination of sex, and resemblances between parents and offspring. (…) In tracing the development of this ancient branch of science it is probable that the most novel element in Dr. Lesky’s work lies in the completeness of her picture. (…) Her work seems as cautious as it is original, and will long play a useful role.’ (B. FARRINGTON in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1954, p.219). From the library of the late Professor Doktor Nikolaus Himmelmann.
€ 89.50
(Antiquarian)