Members of the Department of Embryology,
1939. George Streeter is second from the
right in the first row.
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Already by the 1930's, the research at the
department was changing. Streeter had
started a rhesus monkey colony there in the
1920s, not only to add a comparative
dimension to the study of early embryos but to
provide a basis for the study of primate and
human reproductive physiology. Soon, the
latter effort became paramount. In part this was inevitable. As the the
embryologists sought younger and younger embryos, it was only natural to
reach a point where conception and early development overlapped. Questions
about ovulation and menstruation were still
unsettled. The role of hormones was just being discovered. Indeed, it was
only in 1930 that the ripened human egg was first observed coming from the
ovary.
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