The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Schenk, Leopold

SCHENK, Leopold, Austrian embryologist: b. Urmeny, Hungary, 23 Aug. 1840; d. Schwanberg, Styria, 17 Aug. 1902. He was graduated at Vienna in 1865 and was appointed assistant professor of embryology there in 1873. He attained world-wide notoriety and the censure of the medical profession generally for his theories concerning sex control of the embryo through the diet of the mother. He also worked the theory into an elaborate plan for control of the development of the race. He was eventually forced to resign his position in the university. Besides several textbooks he was author of ‘Einfluss auf das Geschlechtsverhältniss des Menchen und der Thiere’ (1898; Eng. trans., ‘The Determination of Sex,’ 1898).