Heredity and Sex

New York: Columbia University Press, 1913. First edition, first printing.

1913 FIRST EDITION OF T.H. MORGAN'S FIRST BOOK OF EXPERIMENTS ON DROSOPHILA, WHICH LED TO GROUNDBREAKING DISCOVERIES IN GENETICS AND THE NOBEL PRIZE IN 1933.

8 inches tall hardcover, maroon cloth binding, gilt emblem of Columbia University Press to cover, gilt title to spine, top edge gilt. Signature of Geo. T. Hargitt on front free endpaper and title page, i-vi, 282 pp, 121 figures, 282 pp, 4 pp publisher's advertisements. Minimal wear to corners and spine ends, page edges lightly browned, very good in custom archival mylar cover. FROM THE INTRODUCTION: "Two lines of research have developed with surprising rapidity in recent years. Their development has been independent, but at many stages in their progress they have looked to each other for help. The study of the cell has furnished some fundamental facts connected with problems of heredity. The modern study of heredity has proven itself to be an instrument even more subtle in the analysis of the materials of the germ-cells than actual observations on the germ-cells themselves. Jn the following chapters it has been my aim to point out, wherever possible, the bearing of cytological studies on heredity, and of the study of heredity on the malysis of the germinal materials. The time has come, I think, when a failure to recoglize the close bond between these two modern lines of advance can no longer be interpreted as wise skepticism. It seems to me to indicate rather failure to appreciate what is being done at present. and what has been accomplished. It may not be desirible to accept everything that is new, but it is certtinly undesirable to reject what is new because of its newness, or because one has failed to keep in touch with the times. An anarchistic spirit in science does not always mean greater profundity, nor is our attitude toward science more correct because we are unduly skeptical toward every advance. Our usefulness will, in the long run, be proven by whether or not we have been discriminating and sympathetic in our attitude toward the important discoveries of our time. While everyone will probably admit such generalities, some of us may call those who accept less than ourselves conservatives; others of us who accept more will be called rash or intemperate. To maintain the right balance is the hardest task we have to meet. In attempting to bring together, and to interpret, work that is still in the making I cannot hope to have always made the right choice, but I may hope at least for some indulgence from those who realize the difficulties, and who think mth me that it may be worth while to make the attempt to point out to those who are not specialists what specialists are thinking about and doing. What I most fear is that in thus attempting to formulate some of the difficult problems of present-day interest to zoologists I may appear to make at times unqualified statements in a dogmatic spirit. I beg to remind the reader and possible critic that the writer holds all conclusions in science relative, and subject to change, for change in science does not mean so much what what has gone before was wrong as the discovery of a better strategic position than the one last held."

THOMAS HUNT MORGAN (1866 - 1945) was an American embryologist, geneticist, and evolutionary biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role that the chromosome plays in heredity. Morgan received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in zoology in 1890 and researched embryology during his tenure at Bryn Mawr. Following the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance in 1900, Morgan began to study the genetic characteristics of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. In his famous Fly Room at Columbia University, Morgan demonstrated that genes are carried on chromosomes and are the mechanical basis of heredity. These discoveries formed the basis of the modern science of genetics.

PROVENANCE: GEORGE THOMAS HARGITT (1881-1971) was Professor of Zoology and Director of Graduate Studies at Duke University. Hargitt was born in Fairfield, Indiana and received his A.B. from Syracuse University (1902), his A.M. from University of Nebraska (1903), and his Ph.D. from Harvard (1909). In 1939, he was given an honorary doctorate of science by the University of Syracuse. He also was featured in the book "American Men of Science." He conducted research at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, and was author of Outlines of General Biology (1922).