#animalculism

• Animalculism — A preformist biological doctrine or theory of the 17th and 18th centuries, which asserted that the new organism is fully formed, albeit at a microscopic scale (homunculus), inside the spermatozoon (the spermatic animalcule). According to this structural vision, the mother's role was reduced exclusively to providing a nourishing environment for the fetus's subsequent development, a movement directly opposed to ovism in early scientific debates.
• Animalculism — An early doctrinal current or biological hypothesis, specific to the 17th and 18th centuries, stating that the future organism is fully preformed inside the male sex cell (spermatozoon), viewed as a microscopic 'animalcule' that only needs the uterine environment to grow. This radical theoretical orientation was a branch of preformism and was locked in a long conceptual dispute with ovism and epigenesis.