The effect of retinoic acid on the developing hamster heart — an ultrastructural and morphological study

In 1956, Fox and Goss1 suggested that the administration of teratogens such as trypan blue to developing mammalian embryos might afford a new method of experimental attack on the problems of normal morphogenesis of the heart. Sadly, however, Van Mierop and Gessner2 16 years later concluded that it had not so far been possible either by drug or mechanical interference to induce specific anomalies reproducibly in a high enough percentage of offspring to render such studies either practical or reliable. On a more positive note, they did feel that studies such as those of Patterson3 and Siller4 who have examined dogs and chickens with genetic disposition to certain cardiac defects had gone some way towards the goal of understanding the various aetiologies and mechanisms underlying these congenital abnormalities.