Gregor Mendel And the Roots of Genetics Owen Gingerich General Editor Gregor Mendel And the Roots of Genetics Edward Edelson Oxford University Press New York • Oxford Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris Sao Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1999 by Edward Edelson Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Design: Design Oasis Layout: Leonard Levitsky Picture research: Lisa Kirchner Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Edelson, Edward Gregor Mendel / Edward Edelson. p. cm. — (Oxford Portraits in Science) Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: Explores the life of Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk whose experiments with pea plants became a foundation for modern genetics. ISBN 0-19-512226-7 (hardcover); 0-19-515020-1 (paperback) 1. Mendel, Gregor, 1822-1884—-Juvenile literature. 2. Geneticists—Austria—Biogra- phy—-Juvenile literature. [1. Mendel, Gregor, 1822—1884. 2. Geneticists.] I. Tide. II. Series. QH31.M45E34 1999 576.5'092—dc21 98-37541 [b] CIP AC 98765432 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper On the cover Gregor Mendel in the days of his experiments; Inset Mendel as Abbot Frontispiece: Medal commemorating the 100th anniversary of Mendel's papers on heredity. Contents Chapter 1: Mendel is Discovered 8 Sidebar. Heredity before Mendel 11 Sidebar: Mendel and Communism 16 Chapter 2: Young Mendel Chooses the Monastic Life 18 Chapter 3: Mendel Begins Plant Experiments 40 Sidebar. Mendel and Darwin 50 Chapter 4: Mendel Becomes the Abbot 58 Chapter 5: Mendel's Last Years 70 Chapter 6: Mendel Rediscovered 78 Sidebar: Did Mendel Cheat? 84 Chapter 7: Mendel's Legacy 88 Sidebar: The Human Genome Project 96 Chronology 99 Further Reading 101 Index 103 This page intentionally left blank Charles Babbage Alexander Graham Bell Nicolaus copernicus Francis Crick & James Watson Marie Curie Enrico Fermi Thomas Edison Albert Einstein michael Faraday Enrico Fermi Benjamin Franklin Sigmund Freud Galileo Galilei William Harvey Joseph Henry Edward Jenner Johannes Kepler Othniel Charles Marsh & Edward Drinker Cope Margaret Mead Gregor Mendel Isaac Newton Louis Pasteur Linus Pauling Ivan Pavlov Members of the Augustianian monastery in Brno in the early 1860s. Gregor Mendel is standing at the far right, holding a fuchsia bloom. CHAPTER 1 Mendel is Discovered In January 1884, the local newspaper in the city of Brno (then called Brunn and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today in the Czech Republic) noted the death of the beloved abbot of the Brno monastery. The obituary said that the abbot, Gregor Mendel, was an enthusiastic scientif- ic researcher, spending many hours on studies in meteorol- ogy and beekeeping, and growing different kinds of flowers, "especially a full and beautiful fuchsia." It also briefly men- tioned "his observations of plant hybrids, which he grew in large numbers." A hybrid is a new kind of plant created by crossing two distinctly different species or varieties of plants. A quarter of a century later, in 1910, thousands of peo- ple gathered in the square outside the monastery to honor Gregor Mendel. The crowd included a number of re- nowned scientists, from every country in Europe. A statue commemorating Mendel was unveiled, and the square was renamed in his honor. Mendel was being honored for the work with plant hybrids that had not seemed very important during his life. One speaker, a German scientist named Erich Tschermak, said that Mendel's experiments in which he crossed plants 9