GENERAL 



When Dr. Robert Multhauf asked me if I would consider 

 editing this translation of Blyakher's volume, he warned 

 that this was part of what seemed to him a most unusual 

 scholarly project. Thanks to a somewhat mysterious and 

 complicated government exchange program, the Smithsonian 

 Institution and the National Science Foundation had been 

 charged with overseeing the translation into English of 

 several foreign language texts in the history of science. 

 Upon the recommendation of experts, the volumes chosen 

 included two by L. Blyakher, a Russian biologist. In partic- 

 ular, these Russian volumes, including THE HISTORY OF 

 THE INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS, edited 

 by Frederick Churchill, and this one, were thought to present 

 a valuable exposure to a Russian point of view in the history 

 of science and to detail important episodes of Russian scien- 

 tific history. Therefore, the translation began. 



Following someone's recommendation, this particular 

 volume went to Egypt to be translated by an anonymous trans- 

 lator. I admire the translator's patience in working through 

 the detailed embryological descriptions. Unfortunately, how- 

 ever, the style of the English translation was infelicitous 

 at best, and the translator evidently had trouble with 

 proper names, German references, and embryological terms. 

 My task, then, became to turn the prose into an acceptable 

 style, to correct the names and terms to conform with stan- 

 dard English usage, and to check the references. 



The fact that I do not read Russian, except for word- 

 by-word translation with a dictionary, could have posed a 

 fatal problem. But fortunately, the Dickinson College Library 

 and work study office generously donated the services of work 

 study student Lauri Wiener, who reads Russian and possesses 

 the requisite active curiosity and healthy sense of humor. 

 Together, Lauri and I checked the questionable phrases as 

 well as a random sample of other passages to determine the 

 accuracy of the translation. Except for some of the discussion 



