In Vitro Fertilization: The First Three Decades pdf

1

In Vitro Fertilization: The First

Three Decades

Jean Cohen

International Federation of Fertility Societies, European Society of

Human Reproduction and Embryology, Paris, France

Howard W. Jones, Jr.

Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia and Johns Hopkins

University Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

The birth of the world’s first baby born as a result of in vitro fertilization

(IVF) in July 1978 was by no means a chance event. Indeed, in the long evolu￾tion of reproduction, conception by IVF represents the end of a continuum

which originated with childbirth wholly dependent on chance but which

today is almost exclusively under human control. Today, nearly all forms

of infertility can be treated by the various techniques of assisted repro￾duction, which are now responsible for the birth of around two million

children worldwide.

THE HISTORY OF THE PAST

Although the origins of our medical knowledge of human reproduction are

usually attributed to Hippocrates, so often described as the ‘‘father of medi￾cine,’’ we do know that in the fifth century B.C. it was believed that both

males and females each produced two seminal liquors, one stronger than

the other; a blend predominantly with the former would produce a male

offspring, with the latter a female. In the following century, Aristotle

1