Johannes Holtfreter to Viktor Hamburger, November 12, 1958

On European biological instititions in general. On his difficulties at University of Rochester. On visiting Gallion at Sorbonne, Paris and Pasquale Pasquini in Bologna. On Spemann. On von Frisch. On American biology: "I think that in most of the American universities the representative biologists have no longer much intimate relation to the material they are investigating, namely the animal in all its wisdom and perfection. Nowadays it is the great fashion to use the methods of biochemistry or perhaps the electron microscope in an attempt to solve the riddles of nature. But are these methods good enough? They are most useful, desirable and fruitful. However, I have come to the conclusion that the very [illegible] and startling phenomena of morphogenesis are probably beyond the resolving capacity of these approaches. The embryo is still much wiser than we are. (...)"