The physical basis of heredity

by Thomas Hunt Morgan

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

336 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 1919

About the author

Thomas Hunt Morgan Ph.D. (Zoology, Johns Hopkins University, 1890) was an evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries relating the role the chromosome plays in heredity.

Morgan researched embryology during his tenure at Bryn Mawr College, the sister school of his alma mater. Following the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance in 1900, Morgan's research moved to the study of mutation in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In his famous Fly Room at Columbia University, Morgan was able to demonstrate that genes are carried on chromosomes and are the mechanical basis of heredity. These discoveries formed the basis of the modern science of genetics. He was the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in genetics.

During his distinguished career, Morgan wrote 22 books and 370 scientific papers, and, as a result of his work, Drosophila became a major model organism in contemporary genetics. The Division of Biology he established at the California Institute of Technology has produced seven Nobel Prize winners.