The most detailed images of embryos during the eight weeks of growth have been produced by The Endowment for Human Development using digitized images of embryos. The images include 252 movies and animations and 590 labeled figures and thousands of images. They were produced primarily for scientific purposes but uniquely show the reality of human life in its earliest stages. A graphic for development at 25 days shows primary development of heart tissue, and 33 days shows development of the stomach, liver, aorta, atria and ventricles of the heart.

To see them, click on: http://www.ehd.org/virtual-human-embryo/stage.php?stage=1

The library of images, referred to as The Virtual Human Embryo, was developed from the world’s largest collection of human embryos, the Carnegie collection, compiled over many decades and housed at the Human Developmental Anatomy Center in Washington, DC. The VHE Project produced digitized, computerized images of the embryos and sections through them to make the collection accessible for research and teaching of human embryology.

You can view each picture of an embryo as sections; i.e., to see what the interior of the embryo looks like at each of many slices cut through it, showing details of development. The pictures of the “slices” are labeled showing development of organs at different stages, and you can alter the position of the slice to select a section to view. This can be done even at the day-two stage.

You can select sets of figures for each stage, showing details of various organs. You can select moving pictures in which an entire embryo or different parts, such as the skeleton or nervous system (pictured above here at 56 days), are rotated. And you can select written descriptions of what is depicted at each stage and how the images were obtained.

This “atlas” of the human embryo is an excellent store of knowledge, useful for the casual viewer or for students at any level. Like the computer graphics produced by Alexander Tsiaras, they leave no doubt about life in the womb from the very beginning.