How life begins

The AMNH purchased this film from Katherine F. Carter of the Exhibitors Booking Agency in 1917. George E. Stone, who had been an official U.S. Government photographer in France during World War I, collaborated with J. A. Long, assistant professor of embryology at the University of California, to make this early sex education film in an attempt to help combat venereal disease. Through captions, diagrams, and motion pictures, the film explains the processes involved in the development of various cells into mature life forms. Examples of cell development in microscopic yeast, plants, sea urchins, butterflies, and chickens are followed by an examination of mammalian embryo development. Detailed observations of rat development lead to explanations of human development. Despite its age, this film is still informative and this copy is one of the few still in existence.