// Museo // Life cycle: Biology and culture//The ages of life//Prenatal and birth: Biocultural from the start// The fetus

The fetus

The fetus
Left, fetal positions and structures of the placenta shown in sketches by Leonardo da Vinci. Source: folio 8r, volume III from ‘Quaderni d'anatomia, I-VI: Fogli della Royal Library di Windsor, pubblicati da C.L. Vangensten, A. Fonahn, H. Hopstock’ (1911-1916). Right, 1965. Human embryo, 10 weeks. Image by Lennart Nilsson, Source: ‘A Child is Born’. Public domain
Back to Prenatal and birth: Biocultural from the start,
'

The fetus

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) proposed that new studies of human growth and development, from conception onwards, needed to be undertaken. Leonardo initiated his own human dissections, including his study of a seventh-month fetus and the placenta (shown here), and stillborn full-term infants. In 1965, LIFE Magazine published Lennart Nilsson’s photo essay Drama of Life Before Birth. The demand was so great that all issues of the magazine sold-out within days. «Nilsson’s images publicly revealed for the first time what a developing fetus looks like, and in the process raised pointed new questions about when life begins. In the accompanying story, LIFE explained that all but one of the fetuses pictured were photographed outside the womb and had been removed —or aborted— for a variety of medical reasons». Using specially designed lights and lenses, Nilsson photographed the fetuses so, «[…] they appeared to be floating as if in the womb. […] Nilsson’s images endure for their unprecedentedly clear, detailed view of human life at its earliest stages» (quoted material from The Most Influential Images of All Time). [Barry Bogin]