Edward Dolnick (The Clockwork Universe) looks back on the surprisingly elusive mystery of human reproduction in The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From.
Dolnick surveys the various wrong-headed theories, blind alleys and occasional moments of experimental genius that marked the scientific road to understanding. He drops in on Leonardo da Vinci and the anatomists, whose macabre investigations revealed much about the inner workings of the human body. Readers are introduced to William Harvey, who famously proved the heart's purpose as a muscle and came tantalizing close to discovering mammalian eggs at a time (the 1600s) when "witches still flew through the night." Leeuwenhoek and his famous microscopes lead to a heated centuries-long debate between "ovists" and "spermists," as well as the fantastical-seeming theory of pre-existence. Even the era's successes are often marked by oddities--an experiment that entailed sewing tight-fitting boxers for frogs comes to mind.
Dolnick demonstrates how scientists were often influenced and misled by their deep religious beliefs, as well as their prejudiced attitudes toward women, but he also emphasizes the enormous barriers to understanding they faced. Dolnick explains that modern people are beneficiaries of a scientific revolution, a victory "so complete that we take it for granted, to the point that we scarcely remember that we've built our homes on what was once a battleground." Dolnick is an entertaining guide to a small but significant corner of that revolution. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.