Genetics. An Introduction to the Study of Heredity 

 By HERBERT EUGENE WALTER 



Associate Professor of Biology, Brown University 



Cloth, i2tno, $/.jo 



In his " Genetics " Professor Walter summarizes the more re- 

 cent phases of the study of heredity and gives to the non-technical 

 readers a clear introduction to questions that are at present agitat- 

 ing the biological world. 



Professor Walter's conception of sexual reproduction is that it 

 is a device for doubling the possible variations in the offspring, by 

 the mingling of two strains of germ plasm. The weight of prob- 

 ability, he concludes, is decidedly against the time-honored belief 

 in the inheritance of acquired characters. Professor Walter also 

 predicts that the key to this whole problem will be furnished by 

 the chemist, and that the final analysis of the matter of the 

 " heritage carriers " will be seen to be chemical rather than mor- 

 phological in nature. In the practical application of this theory to 

 human conservation or eugenics, it would follow that the only con- 

 trol that a man has over the inheritance of his children is in 

 selecting his wife. Professor Walter holds, if only modifications 

 of the germ plasm can count in inheritance, and if these modifica- 

 tions come wholly from the combination of two germ plasms, then 

 the only method of hereditary influence is in this selection. 



" I find that it is a very useful study for an introduction to the subject. Professor 

 Walter has certainty made one of the clearest statements of the matters involved 

 that I have seen, and has made a book which students will find very useful because 

 he keeps everything in such entirely simple and clear outlines, and at the same 

 time he has brought the book up to date." — Professor Luomis of Amherst 

 College. 



" I am much pleased with it and congratulate you upon securing so excellent a 

 treatment. It is one of the most readable scientific books I have, and goes uner- 

 ringly to the fundamentals of our most recent advances in the experimental study of 

 heredity as well as those of the older studies." — Professor George H. Shull, 

 Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y. 



" There was a decided need for just such a work. The book strikes me as most 

 excellentiy done."— Professor H. S. Jennings, Johns Hopkins University. 



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