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 evolution 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 reproduction, which are now responsible for the birth of around two million children worldwide. . | __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 . 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 evolution 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 reproduction 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 medicine we do know that in the fifth century . 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 2 Cohen and Jones proposed that the first stage of a human being was indeed the egg found in females. Sperm had the power to give that egg its shape the male would bring immaterial strength the female material substance. For centuries people lived with this concept of pre-formation even after De Graaf described the follicle in 1672 and at the same time Leuwenhoek the spermatozoa. Only in 1875 would Hertwig demonstrate in the sea urchin that only one sperm cell would penetrate the egg to achieve fertilization. In 1786 Hunter performed the first artificial insemination in humans and in 1866 Sims the first donor insemination. In 1833 the .
