DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH OF THE HUMAN EMBRYO AND FETUS

Abstract

The available literature on human development does not contain in an accessible and compact form the data necessary for the study of the relationship between the rate of growth and the differentiation of the various organs of the human embryo and fetus. This communication does not include original data but is, rather, a graphic composition designed to bring together in comparable form information obtained from the literature pertaining to the relationship of rate of growth to structural changes in human prenatal development. There has been no attempt to interpret the material presented. We have had two purposes in mind: first, to make data pertaining to growth and development of various organs readily available, and, second, to correlate as completely as possible the rates of growth and the morphologic changes of these organs. A chart is presented for each of the following structures: head, spinal cord, thyroid gland, thymus, heart,