An overview of the development of infertility research and treatment.

Before the invention of the microscope, knowledge of the anatomic factors in human reproduction was limited to the approximations available to the naked eye. Van Leeuwenhoek developed the microscope and also discovered the spermatozoa. With the availability of microscopy, and later biochemistry, the corpus luteum was described and the endocrine functions of the ovaries were partially elucidated. In recent times, too, imaging--by x-ray, sonography, and MRI, and through the laparoscope--has been the key to advances in our understanding of reproduction and, thus, of infertility and its treatment.