One course that has had staying power for almost 80 years is a two-semester course that Hamburger developed integrating comparative vertebrate anatomy and embryology. The course involved both lectures and two 2-hour laboratories a week where students did dissections and observed embryonic development (of both live specimens and prepared sectional slides). Although considered old-fashioned morphology by some, it covered all the basics of what students needed to know about the relationship between structure, function, embryonic development, and evolutionary relationships among vertebrates – an integrative relationship that is almost unheard of in today’s climate of molecular biology. The course was, and still is, extremely popular and a one-semester, truncated version continues to be offered every fall semester.
- Allen, Garland E. "A Pact with the Embryo: Viktor Hamburger, Holistic and Mechanistic Philosophy in the Development of Neuroembryology, 1927–1955." Journal of the History of Biology 37 (2004): 421–75.
- Cowan, W. Maxwell "Viktor Hamburger and Rita Levi-Montalcini: The Path to the Discovery of Nerve Growth Factor." Annual Review of Neuroscience 24 (2001): 551–600.
- Hamburger, Viktor. "The Journey of a Neuroembryologist." Annual Review of Neuroscience 12 (1989): 1–12.
- MBL History Project. (2016). Victor Hamburger Papers. https://hpsrepository.asu.edu/handle/10776/9/discover
- Maienschein, Jane. (2011). Maienschein: 100 Years Exploring Life. Charleston: Nabu Press.
