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The Mendel Centenary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

R. C. Olby
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Extract

Johann Gregor Mendel read his paper, “Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden”, to the Naturforschender Verein in Brno, in two parts, the first at the Society's meeting on 8 February 1865, and the second at the next meeting a month later. It was subsequently published in the Society's proceedings for the year 1865 which appeared in print in 1866.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , December 1965 , pp. 343 - 349
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1965

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References

1 Mendel, G., “Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden”, Verhandlungen des Naturforschenden Vereins in Brünn, iv (1866), 1–47.Google Scholar

2 Published in German by Iltis, H., “Gregor Mendels Selbst-biographie”, Genetica, viii (1926), 329–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Translated by MrsIltis, H., “Gregor Mendel's autobiography”, J. Hered., xlv (1954), 231–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The report suggesting that Dr. Iltis took the “Versuche” manuscript to the United States (see Hanson, H., “Mendel's manuscript, ‘Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden’”, Science, N.Y., cv (1947), 64)Google Scholar has not been substantiated.

4 Kříženecký, I. J., “Mendels zweite erfolglose Lehramtsprüfung im Jahre 1856”, Arch. Gesch. Med., xlvii (1963), 305–310.Google Scholar

5 See also Hambidge, G., “A Mendel Museum in America”, J. Hered., xxxi (1940), 259–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Schindler, A., Gregor Mendel, sein Werk, Leben und Ursprung. Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina in Halle a Saale, 1965.Google Scholar

7 Verein, Naturforschender, “Festschrift zum Andenken an Gregor Mendel”, Verh. naturf. Ver. Brünn, xlix (1911).Google Scholar

8 Iltis, H., Life of Mendel, trans. , E. & Paul, C., London, 1932.Google Scholar

9 Galton, F., “The average contribution of each of several ancestors to the total heritage of the offspring”, Proc. roy. Soc., lxi (1897), 403.Google Scholar

10 Mendel, G., “Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden”. Reprinted in Historiae Naturalis Classica, iv. Engelmann & Wheldon & Wesley, Weinheim, Codicote and New York, 1956, p. 24.Google Scholar

11 Olby, R. C., “Francis Galton's derivation of Mendelian ratios in 1875”, Heredity, xx (1965), pt. 4 (in press).Google Scholar

12 Naudin, C., “Observations constatant le retour simultané de la déscendance d'une plante hybride aux types paternels et maternels”, C.R. Acad. Sc., Paris, xlii (1856), 628.Google Scholar

13 Naudin, C., “Nouvelles recherches sur l'hybridité dans les végétaux”, Ann. Sci. Nat. Botanique, sér. 4, xix (1863), 180–203.Google Scholar

14 Mendel, , “Versuche”, 1956 reprint, p. 42.Google Scholar

15 Fisher, R. A., “Has Mendel's work been rediscovered?” Annals of Science, i (1936), 132.Google Scholar (Fisher was in error when he suggested that Mendel's experiments with Pisum occupied him from 1857–65. The correct dates are 1856–63, and these will be found in the 1965 reprint of Fisher's paper. See: Bennett, J. H. (ed.). Experiments in plant hybridisation… Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh and London, 1965. p. 66).Google Scholar

16 Olby, , Origins of Mendelism. Constable, London, 1965.Google Scholar

17 Take, for instance, Mendel's first statement of the 1:2:1 ratio: “… die Hybriden je zweier differirender Merkmale Samen bilden, von denen die eine Hälfte wieder die Hybrid-form entwickelt, während die andere Pflanzen gibt, welche constant bleiben, und zu gleichen Theilen den dominierenden und recessiven Character erhalten”. (“Versuche”, 1956 reprint, p. 17.) The standard translation of this passage begins with the odd phrase: “… the hybrids form seeds having one or other of the two differentiating characters…”, which is a straight denial of Mendel's principles! (Bateson, W., Mendel's Principles of Heredity, 3rd ed., Cambridge, 1913, p. 349)Google Scholar. A literal translation would be: “… the hybrids for any two differentiating characters form seeds,…”. The confusion is largely due to Mendel's practice of referring to the two expressions of one quality as two differentiating characters–je zweier differirender Merkmale—thus the quality of height is manifested as tall or short.

18 Darlington, C. D. speaks of Mendel's principles being “veiled… in the verbal habits of the past”, Genetics and Man (2nd ed. of The Facts of Life, 1953), George, Allen & Unwin, London, 1964, p. 95.Google Scholar For a different view see J. S. Wilkie, commentary on: “The establishment of the modern genetical theory…”, by Bentley Glass, in Scientific Change… Symposium on the history of science, Oxford, July 1961. Edited by A. C. Crombie. Heinemann, London, 1963, pp. 601–603.

19 Bateson, W., Punnett, R. C., and Saunders, E. R., “Experimental Studies in the Physiology of Heredity”. Reports to the Evolution Committee, iii (1906), 8–11.Google Scholar

The association of characters in different organs of the plant which are produced by the same physiological agent was well-known long before 1905. Thus Mendel treated grey-brown seed coats, violet red blossoms and reddish spots in the leaf axils as one character. Bateson's discovery concerned the association of quite distinct characters—purple flowers and long pollen, and red flowers and round pollen. Moreover, the linkage was not 100 per cent, which suggested the presence of two factors.