Main description:

In his writings Blechschmidt consistently accessed and described the subject of human embryology from the viewpoint of biodynamic metabolic fields and focuses his attention on the question: How does human form arise?

Blechschmidt wrote and published exclusively in German. It was mostly through a German/English bi-lingual volume published by Karger ("The Stages of Human Development Before Birth", 1960) and an exceptional cooperation with his co-author R. F. Gasser ("Biokinetics and Biodynamics of Human Differentiation", 1978), that his work became partly available to an international English speaking audience. "The Beginnings of Human Life" (1977) was written primarily for the general public, but is no longer in print.

The publication of Brian Freeman's translation of "The Ontogenetic Basis of Human Anatomy" (2004), contributed to a growing interest in Blechschmidt's ideas. Slowly osteopaths, Structural Integrators, cranial practitioners and other therapists began to appreciate his work.

The books mentioned above offer both a general and comprehensive access to the morphological cosmos described by Blechschmidt but, unfortunately, they are only partly available at the moment. However, there are a number of unnoticed scientific articles already translated into English that offer a more detailed and deeper, specific insight into this elaborate universe of shape and form. The book you have here is a compilation of a number of those individual articles.

Contents:

1 Principles of Biodynamic Differentiation .................................................. 10
2 The First Three Weeks After Fertilization .................................................... 37
3 The Forming of the Human Face - Elementary embryonic processes ...... 50
4 The development of the cerebral cortex..................................................... 59
5 Biokinetics of the Basicranium ................................................................... 67
6 The Development of the Os Frontale.......................................................... 81
7 The Programming of Afferent and Efferent Nervous Fibres in Man ........... 90
8 Early Stages of Human Limb Development ............................................... 108
9 The Architecture of the Padding of the Heel .............................................. 144