Heredity before Mendel

by Vítezslav Orel

Emeritus Head
The Mendelianum
Brno, Czech Republic

Translated by Stephen Finn

(This essay is the second chapter of Dr. Orel's 1996 biography, Gregor Mendel: The First Geneticist, published by, and currently available from, Oxford University Press (ISBN 0 19 854774 9). It appears at MendelWeb, for non-commercial educational use only, with the kind permission of Oxford University Press. Although you are welcome to download this text, please do not reproduce it without the permission of the author and Oxford University Press.)

"Heredity Before Mendel" (html)
Orel (1996): A MendelWeb Introduction
Orel (1996): Table of Contents
Sapp (1990): Bibliography
"Heredity Before Mendel" (ascii text: 80K )

Orel (1996): A MendelWeb Introduction

One of the most interesting areas of the history of science concerns how scientists come to ask the particular questions they do, and how these questions are framed, and otherwise influenced, by historically contingent professional and political outlooks and languages. One common and excellent question from students reading Mendel's paper for the first time, is how the paper relates to other botanical, agricultural, and biological texts of the early and middle 19th century; and, more specifically, how Mendel's approach to, and his vocabulary for discussing, issues of heredity compare with the approach and vocabulary of his contemporaries.

Unfortunately, genetics textbooks generally provide little help in answering such questions. When a "history" of thinking about inheritance is presented in a textbook, it often covers the period between Hippocrates and Darwin in a single page (or paragraph), with mention of Aristotle or the preformationists occasionally thrown in for color. This hardly helps a student understand how Mendel came to ask the questions he did, when he did, much less why he designed his experiments with Pisum the way he did. Furthermore, the traditional textbook "sketch" of scientific history doesn't encourage students to think about how research in different regions of the world might have been framed and motivated very differently during a single historical period.

In Vítezslav Orel's "Heredity Before Mendel", however, we find a detailed discussion of the experimental and agricultural background to Mendel's experiments in hybrid production, as well as a rich account of the various questions and texts which were considered significant in the study of heredity during Mendel's early life, and particularly in the part of the world in which he lived. The essay makes clear that Mendel's questions and experiments in 1856, the year he claimed to have begun the experiments reported in his paper of 1865, had a rich and practical history (even among the members of the Augustinian monastery at Brno). Although the reader of Orel's essay may learn more about sheep breeding in Moravia than she has occasion to apply, the text is an extremely important background reading for anyone interested in a detailed study of Mendel's paper.

Orel's essay is the second chapter from his recent, critically acclaimed biography, Gregor Mendel: The First Geneticist (Orel 1996), published last year by (and currently available from) Oxford University Press. The book is the most complete biography since Hugo Iltis' Life of Mendel (Iltis 1966), and must be considered required reading for anyone seriously interested in the study of Mendel. During the past year, one of the most frequently asked questions at MendelWeb has been why there is no traditional biography available here, on-line. To put the answer simply: I would not want to encourage anyone to settle for a page of "textbookish" biography, in whatever medium, when a book like Orel's is so easily available. I wish to thank Oxford University Press for allowing this chapter to appear at MendelWeb, and I'm pleased to note that photographs of the author, as well as some of the locations mentioned in Gregor Mendel: The First Geneticist , appear (exclusively) at MendelWeb, as part of Dr. Margaret Peaslee's essay, "In the Footsteps of Mendel".

"Heredity Before Mendel"

by Vítezslav Orel.

Orel (1996): Ordering Information from Oxford University Press

Gregor Mendel: The First Geneticist, by Vítezslav Orel (ISBN 0 19 854774 9) is available from Oxford University Press, for $49.95 US and £29.50 UK.

                In the U.S., contact:
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                                    Oxford University Press
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                                    Email: nbc@oup-usa.org

                 Elsewhere, contact:
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For a brief review of Orel's book see the Mendel Biography page at GeneWeb.

MendelWeb was conceived and created by Roger B. Blumberg

rblum@netspace.org