THE GREAT RELAY R-\CE 443 



and conclusions that mark him as the patron saint of the modern 

 science of Genetics. 



Mendelism 



Gregor Johann Mendel, with peas and arithmetic, not only demon- 

 strated the existence of an orderly system of inheritance that bears 

 his name, but was himself a living example of the extent to which 

 innate hereditary ability can dominate an environment none too 

 favorable. He was an Augustinian monk, attached to a monastery 

 in Briinn, Austria (now Brno, Czechoslovakia), where, with ordinary 

 garden peas, he carried through a remarkable series of breeding 

 experiments extending over several years. During the first part of 

 his career, when working on these famous experiments, he was 

 handicapped by having only a small patch of a cloister garden in 

 which to operate. Later on, when he finally became abbot of the 

 monastery and could control garden space at will, he was necessarily 

 so occupied with the administrative duties of his office that he did 

 not have much time to devote to scientific pursuits. Yet, in spite of 

 these limitations, and regardless of the fact that his associates were 

 not particularly sympathetic with his unpriestly avocations, he 

 carried to completion by himself this remarkable piece of fundamental 

 investigation which insures for him a permanent place in the biological 

 Hall of Fame. 



His results were finally published in 1866 in the obscure "Pro- 

 ceedings" of a small, unimportant local Natural History Society. 

 They did not at the time gain appreciative attention and were 

 promptly forgotten, due in part perhaps to the preoccupation of the 

 scientific world at the time with the newly launched Thconj of Natural 

 Selection (1859) of Charles Darwin. Unrecognized and unknown, 

 Mendel died in 1884, with the confident declaration on his lips, 

 "Meine Zeit wird schon kommen ! " Some years later this prophecy 

 came true when, in 1900, three scientists, Correns in Germany, von 

 Tschermak in Austria, and DeVries in Holland, independently 

 rediscovered Mendel's forgotten contribution, and because of it, 

 initiated the remarkable era in the study of heredity that has resulted 

 in establishing the science of Genetics as we know it today. 



What Mendel Did 



Mendel's genius is shown by the fact that he did not make his 

 experiments blindly, but set for himself the clearly defined problem 



