𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐦𝐛𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐃𝐫. 𝐋𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐮𝐬
Mohamad Mostafa Nassar
Twitter:@NassarMohamadMR
Writing under the pen name of Dr. Lactantius, a Christian author who describes himself as a practising medical doctor in the United Kingdom, alleges that the descriptions of human prenatal development as mentioned in the Qur’an had been plagiarised from the writings of ancient Greek physicians, notably Galen.
Such writings were said to have been transmitted to the Prophet Muhammad through his companion al-Harith bin Kaladah, who is said to have studied medicine at an old and noted medical school at Jundishapur (southern Persia) where instruction in all of the Greek disciplines could be obtained. (For a detailed refutation of these theories see Was al-Harith bin Kaladah the Source of Prophet Muhammad’s Medical Knowledge? and Did the Prophet Muhammad Plagiarise Ancient Greek Embryology?).
Dr. Lactantius supports his essay by way of illustrations, diagrams and quoted authorities. But the good doctor has, as it seems to me, deliberately falsified a number of illustrations in order to justify his theory of plagiarism and scientific error in the Qur’an as we see below:
After consulting a number of texts I can only conclude that there are no textbooks of modern embryology that contain such crude, dismal or forged illustrations of the like he presents to us here. It would seem that these wretched drawings were made by him or for him on his instruction, with the obvious intention to deceive the reader. Only illustration A could remotely be regarded as a likeness to an embryo, yet one has to wonder why Lactantius is unable or unwilling to furnish a single photograph or authentic illustration? In contrast he is well able to present to us images of Hippocrates and Galen – no crude, dismal or forged illustrations there.
The true extent of his scam becomes manifest when we actually compare the original illustrations at full size showing all their wrinkles, imperfections and blemishes. Note that I have not retouched nor resized any of the following images:
It is truly laughable to consider these as aids to help one visualise the stages of embryological developmental. Dr. Lactantius truly believes that his embryo drawings are faithful representations of real stages of embryonic development in comparison to published embryos we see in medical textbooks. Compare the following photograph of an 11-week fetus with Lactantius’ Mickey-Mouse cartoon sketch of the same embryo:
That Dr. Lactantius dare present these grotesque sketches as scientific illustrations is truly unbelievable. But worst still, he perceives no problem in doing so!