THE GENES AND THE HOPE OF MANKIND 



By Bruce Bliven 

 Editor, The New Reputlic 



Amazing strides have been made in recent years and even months 

 in relation to the most fascinating of all scientific riddles — that which 

 has to do with the origin and development of life itself. These 

 recent achievements would have attracted far more attention than 

 they have were it not that the world has been distracted with war 

 and politics. Nevertheless it is quite possible that some of the work 

 done in the past few years may be remembered for many centuries 

 after the political and military leaders of today are gone and for- 

 gotten. In some of the great research laboratories of the United 

 States I have recently had the privilege of seeing the extraordinary 

 achievements in this field that science is now accomplishing. 



It is hard to realize how rapidly progress has been made in rela- 

 tion to this subject. It is only since the year 1901 that the Mendelian 

 law has been rediscovered after having lain forgotten for more than 

 35 years in a paper written by the fat Austrian monk. (It was 

 ridiculed, when first published, by some of the leading scientists 

 of the day.) It was more than a decade later before the extensive 

 usefulness of the tiny banana fly in laboratory experiments was 

 fully realized. Only in 1927 did science discover that bombarding 

 the individual with X-rays or neutrons could produce a wide variety 

 of mutations in the next generation, thus speeding up the evolution- 

 ary process a hundred or a thousandfold. Not until 1934 did the 

 scientists learn that the giant chromosomes found in the salivary 

 glands of this banana fly (Drosophila) could be studied under the 

 microscope to great advantage. Finally, only within the last year 

 or two have the scientists found out that remarkable things happen 

 to plants when they are treated with the miraculous drug called 

 colchicine, obtained from the roots of the bitter autumn crocus. 

 As a result of aU these things, the doors have swung open on a 



1 This Is the sixth of a series of articles under the general title, "The Men Who Make 

 the Future." They are based on interviews with numerous leading American research 

 experts who were promised that they would not be quoted by name. Reprinted by per. 

 mission from The New Republic, vol. 104, No. 15, April 14, 1941. 



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