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History Daily

The First IVF Baby

History Daily

Airship | Noiser | Wondery

History

4.42.1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2024

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

July 25, 1978. The first baby conceived via IVF is born in England, marking the success of an 18-year medical research project.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:04.0

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0:10.0

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0:32.0

28 year old graduate student Robert Edwards opens the door to his laboratory and politely gestures for his companion to enter.

0:40.0

After spending the evening in a bar with Robert, fellow student Ruth Fowler is eager to see the

0:45.1

research project he spent the last few hours talking about.

0:49.6

The two students tiptoe inside the dark room both a little tipsy.

0:54.0

Ruth stumbles into a table while Robert feels along the wall for the light switch.

0:59.3

Robert finds a switch and when the lights come on Ruth sees row upon row of cages lying in the

1:05.8

countertops and inside are hundreds of mice. This is what Robert Jobially

1:10.7

refers to as the Mouse House.

1:13.0

Robert is a scientist studying the reproduction of mice.

1:16.0

He has to inspect these rodents when they're most likely to breed,

1:20.0

and that's when the sun's down.

1:22.0

But even though Ruth is a student at the same university,

1:25.0

bringing an outsider into the lab is forbidden.

1:28.0

If they're caught, Robert could get in trouble.

1:30.0

So they try to keep quiet.

1:37.2

But Robert also wants to impress Ruth. He unlatches one of the cage doors and fumbles to extract a mouse for Ruth to hold. The creature

1:41.9

wriggles out of Robert's grip though and lands at their feet before

1:45.0

shooting across the floor. Soon the two students are scrambling all over the lab on

...

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