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Test-Tube Baby

A test-tube baby is the product of a successful human reproduction that results from methods beyond sexual intercourse between a man and a woman and instead utilizes medical intervention that manipulates both the egg and sperm cells for successful fertilization. The term was originally used to refer to the babies born from the earliest applications of artificial insemination and has now been expanded to refer to children born through the use of in vitro fertilization, the practice of fertilizing an embryo outside of a woman's body.

Format: Articles

Subject: Processes, Ethics, Reproduction

Rh Incompatibility in Pregnancy

Rh incompatibility occurs when a pregnant woman whose blood type is Rh-negative is exposed to Rh-positive blood from her fetus, leading to the mother s development of Rh antibodies. These antibodies have the potential to cross the placenta and attach to fetal red blood cells, resulting in hemolysis, or destruction of the fetus 's red blood cells. This causes the fetus to become anemic, which can lead to hemolytic disease of the newborn. In severe cases, an intrauterine blood transfusion for the fetus may be required to correct the anemia.

Format: Articles

Subject: Processes, Disorders, Reproduction

Dandy-Walker Syndrome

Dandy-Walker Syndrome is a congenital brain defect in humans characterized by malformations to the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls movement, and to the ventricles, the fluid-filled cavities that surround the cerebellum. The syndrome is named for physicians Walter Dandy and Arthur Walker who described associated signs and symptoms of the syndrome in the 1900s. The malformations often develop during embryonic stages.

Format: Articles

Subject: Disorders

Beal v. Doe (1977)

In the case of Beal v. Doe, tried in 1977, the US Supreme Court ruled that states could constitutionally restrict money from Medicaid from funding elective abortions. After the 1973 case Roe v. Wade, in which the US Supreme Court had ruled women have the rights to terminate pregnancies within the first trimester, the state of Pennsylvania passed legislation that restricted the use of Medicaid funds for abortion procedures. In 1977, several Medicaid eligible women who were unable to receive coverage for a non-therapeutic abortion brought a case against Frank S.

Format: Articles

Subject: Legal

"Comfortably, Safely, and Without Shame: Defining Menstrual Hygiene Management as a Public Health Issue" (2015), by Marni Sommer, Jennifer S. Hirsch, Constance Nathanson, and Richard G. Parker

In July 2015, Marni Sommer and colleagues published “Comfortably, Safely, and Without Shame: Defining Menstrual Hygiene Management as a Public Health Issue,” hereafter “Defining MHM,” in American Journal of Public Health. The authors discuss that growing interest in the gender gap in education raised awareness about girls’ obstacles to managing menstruation, especially in low-income countries. Increased focus on MHM pushed menstruation to be redefined as a public issue rather than a private one.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

Period. End of Sentence. (2018)

On 5 April 2018, the documentary Period. End of Sentence. premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. In the documentary, Rayka Zehtabchi, the director of the film, documents the stigma surrounding menstruation in India and follows a group of women in Kathikhera, a rural village in the Hapur district of India, as they manufacture and distribute sanitary pads.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

Sexology (1904) by William Henry Walling

In 1904, physician William Henry Walling published Sexology, a family medicine reference book. In his book, Walling proposed that his guidance would help people who were married or single and young or old, as well as anyone who wanted to conform to, what he claims are, gender expectations. Sexology discusses issues such as masturbation, abortion, pregnancy, labor, and marriage.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

Gardasil HPV Vaccination Series

In 2006, United States pharmaceutical company Merck released the Gardasil vaccination series, which protected recipients against four strains of Human Papillomaviruses, or HPV. HPV is a sexually transmitted infection which may be asymptomatic or cause symptoms such as genital warts, and is linked to cervical, vaginal, vulvar, anal, penile, head, neck, and face cancers.

Format: Articles

Subject: Technologies

Felix Anton Dohrn

Felix Anton Dohrn is best remembered as the founder of the Stazione Zoologica di Napoli, the world' s first permanent laboratory devoted to the study of marine organisms. Dohrn was born on 29 December 1840 in Stettin, Pomerania (now Poland), to a wealthy merchant family. Dohrn's paternal grandfather, Heinrich, trained as a surgeon and then established a sugar refinery, while Dohrn's father, Carl August Dohrn, who inherited the family business, became interested in natural history through Alexander von Humboldt, a family friend.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Kurt Benirschke (1924-)

Kurt Benirschke studied cells, placentas, and endangered species in Germany and the US during the twentieth century. Benirschke was professor at the University of California in San Diego, California, and a director of the research department at the San Diego Zoo in San Diego, California. He also helped form the research department of the San Diego Zoo and its sister organization, the Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Apoptosis in Embryonic Development

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a mechanism in embryonic development that occurs naturally in organisms. Apoptosis is a different process from cell necrosis, which is uncontrolled cell death usually after infection or specific trauma. As cells rapidly proliferate during development, some of them undergo apoptosis, which is necessary for many stages in development, including neural development, reduction in egg cells (oocytes) at birth, as well as the shaping of fingers and vestigial organs in humans and other animals. Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz, and John E.

Format: Articles

Subject: Theories

Etienne Stephane Tarnier (1828–1897)

Etienne Stephane Tarnier was a physician who worked with premature infants in France during the nineteenth century. He worked at the Maternité Port-Royal in
Paris, France, a hospital for poor pregnant women. Tarnier developed and introduced prototypes of
infant incubators to the Maternité in 1881. Tarnier's incubators became standard in neonatal care,
especially for premature infants, enabling doctors to save many such infants that previously would
have died.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Fortunio Liceti (1577–1657)

Fortunio Liceti studied natural philosophy and medicine in Italy during the first half of the seventeenth century. Liceti wrote greater than seventy works on a wide range of topics, including the human soul, reproduction, and birth defects observed in animals and human infants. In the seventeenth century, people commonly addressed birth defects using superstition and considered them as signs of evil, possibly caused by spiritual or supernatural entities. Liceti described infants with birth defects as prodigies and monsters to be admired and studied rather than feared.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Ginger as a Treatment for Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy by Teraporn Vutyavanich, Theerajana Kraisarin, and Rung-Aroon Ruangsri (1998–2001)

In 1998 and 1999, Teraporn Vutyavanich, Theerajana Kraisarin, and Rung-Aroon Ruangsri in Thailand showed that ginger alleviated nausea in pregnant women. Vutyavanich and his colleagues found that the group of pregnant women who took ginger capsules reported significantly fewer nausea symptoms and vomiting episodes than the group who only received the placebo. Vutyavanich and his team’s study at Chiang Mai University in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was one of the earliest to investigate and support the use of ginger as an effective treatment for relieving pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments

“Diethylstilbestrol in the Prevention and Treatment of Complications of Pregnancy” (1948), by Olive Watkins Smith

In 1948, Olive Watkins Smith published 'Diethylstilbestrol in the Prevention and Treatment of Complications of Pregnancy' in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 632 women treated with diethylstilbestrol, Smith demonstrated that the drug stimulated the production of progesterone, a hormone that regulates the uterine condition during pregnancy.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

“Pelvic Scoring for Elective Induction” (1964), by Edward Bishop

In the 1964 article, “Pelvic Scoring for Elective Induction,” obstetrician Edward Bishop describes his method to determine whether a doctor should induce labor, or artificially start the birthing process, in a pregnant woman. Aside from medical emergencies, a woman can elect to induce labor to choose when she gives birth and have a shorter than normal labor. The 1964 publication followed an earlier article by Bishop, also about elective induction.

Format: Articles

Subject: Reproduction, Publications

Anatomia Uteri Humani Gravidi Tabulis Illustrata (The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures) (1774), by William Hunter

William Hunter’s Anatomia Uteri Humani Gravidi Tabulis Illustrata (The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures), hereafter called The Human Gravid Uterus, is an anatomical atlas depicting the pregnant form through both engravings and descriptions. William Hunter, an anatomist working in England during the eighteenth century, compiled the work based on observations from his dissections of pregnant women.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

Norman Haire (1892-1952)

Norman Haire was a physician who advocated for eugenics, which is the betterment of human population by promoting positive traits, and birth control rights in the twentieth century in both Australia and the UK. In the UK, Haire joined the Malthusian League, a contraception advocacy organization, and helped the League open the first physician-supervised birth control clinic, called Walworth Women’s Welfare Centre in London, England.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

Osmotic Investigations: Studies on Cell Mechanics (1877), by Wilhelm Pfeffer

Wilhelm Pfeffer published his book Osmotische Untersuchungen: Studien Zur Zellmechanik (Osmotic Investigations: Studies on Cell Mechanics) in 1877 during his time as a professor of botany at the University of Basel in Basel, Switzerland. Gordon R. Kepner and Eduard J. Stadelmann translated the book into English in 1985. Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann in Leipzig, Germany, published the original book in German in 1877 and Van Nostrand Reinhold Company in New York, New York, published the English version in 1985.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

"Pregnancy Complicating Diabetes" (1949), by Priscilla White

In 1949, Priscilla White published Pregnancy Complicating Diabetes, which described the results and implications of a fifteen-year study about pregnant diabetic women. Published in the American Journal of Medicine, the article details possible causes of and ways to prevent the high fetal mortality rate associated with pregnant diabetic women. Diabetes is a disease in which the body's ability to produce or respond to the hormone insulin is impaired, and it can be particularly dangerous during pregnancies.

Format: Articles

Subject: Publications

Charles Knowlton (1800–1850)

Charles Knowlton was a physician and author who advocated for increased access to information about reproduction in the nineteenth century in the US. Throughout his early medical education, Knowlton was particularly interested in anatomy and on several instances robbed graves for bodies to dissect. In 1832, Knowlton authored The Fruits of Philosophy, a pamphlet that contained detailed descriptions of the reproductive organs and information on conception and methods to control reproduction.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

Robert Geoffrey Edwards (1925-2013)

Robert Geoffrey Edwards worked with Patrick Christopher Steptoe to develop in-vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques during the 1960s and 1970s in the United Kingdom. Louise Brown, the world' s first "test-tube baby," was born as a result of Edwards and Steptoe's IVF techniques in 1978, and since then more than four million children have been born using IVF techniques. Publicity and controversy accompanied Edwards and Steptoe's work as conservative religious institutions expressed concern over the morality of the IVF procedure.

Format: Articles

Subject: People, Reproduction

Theodor Heinrich Boveri (1862-1915)

Theodor Boveri investigated the mechanisms of heredity. He developed the chromosomal theory of inheritance and the idea of chromosomal individuality. Boveri sought to provide a comprehensive explanation for the hereditary role and behavior of chromosomes. He hoped that his experiments would also help to distinguish the roles of the nucleus and the cytoplasm in embryogenesis. Boveri was particularly interested in how offspring are shaped by the attributes of their parents.

Format: Articles

Subject: People

The Marine Biological Laboratory-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Library

In 1888 when students and investigators arrived in Woods Hole for the inaugural session of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), they recognized the need for a library collection of books and journals. The one wooden building on campus, later known as Old Main, housed everything, with researchers upstairs and the student laboratory downstairs. Lectures were held in one corner, and shelves held what books and journals were contributed.

Format: Articles

Subject: Organizations

Viktor Hamburger's Study of Central-Peripheral Relations in the Development of Nervous System

An important question throughout the history of embryology is whether the formation of a biological structure is predetermined or shaped by its environment. If both intrinsic and environmental controls occur, how exactly do the two processes coordinate in crafting specific forms and functions? When Viktor Hamburger started his PhD study in embryology in the 1920s, few neuroembryologists were investigating how the central neurons innervate peripheral organs.

Format: Articles

Subject: Experiments