Discovery of the Graafian follicle

The Graafian follicle is the mature ovarian follicle, named after the Dutch physician Regnier de Graaf, who described its development in his treatise on the female organs of generation published at Leiden in 1672. De Graaf himself pointed out that he was not the first to describe the follicles, and Fallopius and others had noticed them earlier without recognising their reproductive significance. From rabbit experiments he concluded that the follicle contained the egg, although he took the whole follicle for the egg, and the mammalian egg was not found until Karl Ernst von Baer in 1827. Jan Swammerdam accused him of claiming discoveries about the ovary that Swammerdam and Johannes van Horne had made earlier.