Needham's successor, Professor Ho Peng-yoke, points out that at that time a few classical sinologists could not help feeling that the history of Chinese science should be their own academic territory. They were curious about how a Cambridge authority on embryology could produce such a work.
他的繼承者何丙郁教授指出，當時一些窮經皓首的漢學家難免認為中國科技史的研究應歸屬他們的範疇，因此相當好奇這位生化權威要怎樣寫出一部中國科技史來。