Howard Adelmann made his first venture into the history of embryology in 1933 with his study of Volcher Coiter. Twenty-five years ago, in 1942, he followed this with The Embryological Treatises of Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, a massive and scholarly volume in which the embryological knowledge of Fabricius was documented and presented in English with a wealth of annotation analysing and explaining the historical and scientific background of the texts. At that time few of us could have guessed that this work, far from being regarded as a crowning achievement, was but the model for something far greater, for what has been called a 'monument of scientific and historical scholarship' which would have been considered as remarkable if it had been the work of a whole team of devoted scholars. The modem currency of superlatives is too debased to employ in trying to convey to anybody who has not already seen and turned over the 2500 pages of Adelmann's work on Malpighi the impression that it makes. One is struck with awe by its comprehensive range and by the penetrating discussion of minutiae that even a well informed reader might reasonably have passed over without query. It opens up new perspectives in the history of embryology and general biology and, like all great works which deal with the history of ideas, generates enough new ideas of its own to serve as the themes of a score of theses. How can one possibly do justice to a work of this magnitude in any review! Perhaps it is sufficient merely to describe what is contained in these five superbly designed and printed volumes-surely among the best that even the Oxford University Press has ever produced. The twin gems which are placed in this magnificent setting are Malpighi's two Latin dissertations on the formation of the chick in the egg, first published with 11 engraved plates by the Royal Society in 1673. In Malpighi's time scientific knowledge was still part of the general cultural inheritance and had not yet been compartmentalized into a series of separate esoteric systems. Malpighi was urged on in his work by the Royal Society and he wrote for the generally educated reader as well as the still non-specialist virtuosi. He writes in the first person, taking us through his observations as intimately as if we were sitting beside him at his bench, appealing to our own 'dis-cernment' and …