The Foundations of Genetics

217 Pages·1966·24.646 MB·English

by  F. A. E. Crew, J. M. Dodd and Francis Knowles (Auth.)

THE COMMONWEALTH AND INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY
Joint Chairmen of the Honorary Editorial Advisory Board
SIR ROBERT ROBINSON, O.M., F.R.S., LONDON
DEAN ATHELSTAN SPILHAUS, MINNESOTA
Publisher: ROBERT MAXWELL, M.C3 M.P.
ZOOLOGY DIVISION
General Editors: j. M. DODD AND SIR FRANCIS KNOWLES
THE FOUNDATIONS OF GENETICS
The forecourt of the Augustinian monastery of St. Thomas. On the left,
the white marble statue of Mendel by the Viennese sculptor Charlemont,
a tribute from "the friends of science to the investigator Gregor Mendel".
It was unveiled in 1910 when it stood in the Klosterplatz outside the
monastery wall. On the right, the sandstone monument erected by the
monastery in 1922 on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of Mendel's
birth. It stands in the garden plot (120 ft X 20 ft) that was used by Mendel
in his pea experiments. The windows on the first floor above the monument
and facing the street are those of the apartment occupied by Mendel during
these years. On the right of this plot, on the ground-floor, is the room that
was the refectory of the monastery and that now is the Mendel Memorial
Hall.
THE FOUNDATIONS
OF GENETICS
by
F. A. E. CREW, F.R.S.
Formerly Professor of Animal Genetics
in the University of Edinburgh
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright © 1966 Pergamon Press Ltd.
First edition 1966
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 65-27371
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This book is sold subject to the condition
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(2312/66)
A great man lays upon
posterity the duty of understanding him
JOHN BUCHAN, Oliver Cromwell
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
The forecourt of the Augustinian monastery of St.
Thomas Frontispiece
I. The Augustinian House of St. Thomas, Brno Facing p. 18
II. J. G. Kölreuter, Carl F. von Gärtner, Charles
Naudin, August Weismann
III. Francis Galton, E. B. Wilson, Pierre Louis
François Levegue de Vilmorin, Johann
Gregor Mendel
IV. Carl Correns, Hugo de Vries, Erich von 50
Tschermak-Seysenegg, Th. Boveri
V. William Bateson, R. C. Punnett, W. Johanssen,
W. E. Castle
VI. Charles B. Davenport, Thomas Hunt Morgan,
Calvin B. Bridges, H. J. Muller
VII. Giant chromosomes of the salivary glands of
D. melanogaster 98
FIGURES PAGE
1. A dioecious plant 6
2. A monoecious plant 7
3. Fertilization in a flowering plant 8
4. The unfixable hétérozygote: the Blue Andalusian fowl 33
5. Mitosis 58
6. Factor interaction: Peacomb XRosecomb in the fowl 77
7a. Sex-linkage in Abraxas 81
ix
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
7b. Sex-linkage in Abraxas: the reciprocal cross 82
8. A population compounded out of five pure lines of beans 91
9. The chromosome complex of the normal human male ; the
karyotype of the normal human male 93
10. Meiosis 95
11. Pollen-grain formation 96
12. Embryo-sac formation 97
13. Cross-section of a grain of maize 98
14. Drosophila melanogaster: male and female 99
15. Conventional diagram of the chromosome complex of
Drosophila melanogaster 100
16. Sex-linkage in Drosophila melanogaster 104
17. Sex-linkage in Drosophila melanogaster: the reciprocal
cross 105
18. Sex-linkage in Abraxas: the explanation 107
19. Primary non-disjunction 116
20. Secondary non-disjunction 117
21. Bar-eye character in Drosophila melanogaster 118
22. Map of the chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster 120
23. The giant chromosomes of the salivary gland ofDrosophila
melanogaster: diagrammatic 151
PREFACE
GENETICS has become the core science in the biological field; its
basic tenets have profoundly influenced the rate and the direction
of the development of all the biological and sociological sciences
and have found their applications in many different spheres of
scientific activity.
The major interest in genetics has been passing from the bio
logical to the molecular level where the basic nature of the living
organism is being studied in almost incredible detail by means of
the techniques and experimental methods of physics, chemistry
and mathematics. For an understanding of the newer molecular
genetics an adequate knowledge of what is now called classical
genetics is essential.
This book attempts to trace the historical development of genetics,
throwing into prominence those contributions to advancing genetical
knowledge which can surely claim an exceptional and enduring
importance.* It also draws attention to the many and varied spheres
of scientific activity in which genetics, in application, has been found
to have its fruitful uses.
F. A. E. C.
* These are the scientific papers cited in the footnotes.
XI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As THE approach in the writing of this book has been the historical,
it follows that I have drawn very largely upon the writing of others.
I hope that the inclusion of any book or scientific paper in the list
of references at the end of this book will be regarded as an acknow
ledgement of my indebtedness and as a gesture of gratitude to both
author and publisher.
I am very grateful to the late Dr. J. Krizenecky, of the section of
the Moravian Museum in Brno which is concerned with the collec
tion and conservation of Mendeliana, for the photographs of Gregor
Mendel, of his statue and of the monastery in Brno; to Dr. B. M.
Slizynski of the Institute of Animal Genetics, Edinburgh University,
for the photograph of the giant chromosomes of Drosophila mela-
nogaster; to Dr. Marcus Rhoades of the University of Indiana for the
photographs of some of the founders of genetics which appeared as
frontispieces in the journal Genetics and for his permission to re
produce them; to Professor R. C. Punnett and to Professor H. J.
Müller of Indiana University for photographs of themselves and to
Professor Edward Castle of Harvard University for one of his
father, for inclusion in the company of the founders and to Messrs.
Oliver & Boyd of Edinburgh for permission to reproduce a number
of illustrations in a book written by me and published by them many
years ago.
F. A. E. C.
xiii
CHAPTER 1
PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE
MENDEL
WHEN, long ago in man's eventful history, the hunter of wild animals
and the gatherer of wild plants gave place to the herdsman and to
the scatterer of grain, his dependence upon domesticated animals
and cultivated plants began. It was inevitable that sooner or later
he would seek ways and means of "improving" these animals and
plants so that they might more fully satisfy his expanding needs.
The accumulated experience of countless generations of husband
men gradually became fashioned into a traditional craft and out of
the breeders' methods of trial and error the art of breeding developed,
to be used in the creation of new breeds and varieties attuned to
the purposes for which they were being deliberately bred and
to the conditions of the environment in which they were to be
raised.
When man had gained the mastery over his physical environment
and the struggle for existence had become less fierce, the breeder
ceased to look upon his animals and plants merely as objects of use
and began to look to them for aesthetic satisfaction. He became a
"fancier" who exercised the art of breeding in the production of
animals and plants remarkable for their beauty or for their quaint-
ness. The great variety of animals and plants of economic
importance and their high quality and the great diversity of types of
exhibition beasts and birds and flowers and fruits that are to be
encountered in the agricultural, poultry, bird and flower shows that
figure so large in the life of most countries today bear witness to
the astonishing skill that the breeder and the fancier wield. These
are the creations of the artist, not of the scientist, for no satisfactory
explanation of the successes that these men achieved and of the
1