VjenetlCS. An Introduction to the Study of Heredity 



By HERBERT EUGENE WALTER 

 Associate Professor of Biology, Brown University 



Cloth, 12mo, SI. SO 



In his "Genetics" Professor Walter summarizes the more recent 



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



a clear introduction to questions that are at present agitating 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 morphological in 

 nature. In the practical application of this theory to human con- 

 servation or eugenics, it would follow that the only control 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 modifications come wholly from 

 the combination of two germ plasms, then the only method of hered- 

 itary influence is in this selection. 



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

 subject. Professor Walter has certainly 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 every- 

 thing in such entirely simple and clear outlines, and at the same time 

 he has brought the book up to date." — Professor Loomis of Am- 

 herst 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 unerringly to the fundamentals of our most 

 recent advances in the experimental study of heredity as well aB 

 those of the older studies." — Professor George H. Shttll, Cold 

 Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y. 



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

 me as most excellently done." — Professor H. S. Jennings, Johns 

 Hopkins University. 



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