

Brother Gregory: Gene One

Being the fictionalized story of Brother Gregor Mendel; monk, scientist and the discoverer of genetics.

How Mendel delivers his famous lecture and first tells the world about genetics.

by

John Hulme

scholar

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 John Hulme

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Afterword

About the Author

Footnotes

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Chapter One

A cold night in Brno

It was cold. February in Brno [see footnote] is a cruel, bitter month when the winds from the Carpathian Mountains curl around the Austro-Hungarian Empire seeking out the unprotected. Gray streets, gray stone houses and a gray sky blended seamlessly into one another, as they had done all day. From Vienna to the small farmsteads of northern Moravia around Krnov, the winter of 1865 had been a particularly brutal one. Snow-laden storm after snow-laden storm had tracked out of the mountains carried by the perpetual wind. Attendance at the monthly meeting of the Brno Society of Natural Sciences would be small that evening.

Thomas Makytta pulled his coat tightly around him and started to cross Nadrazni Street. He had been waiting, and sheltering, in the Brno hlavni nadrazi train station for over an hour, but it was now time to move. A retired schoolteacher from Heinzendorf, a tiny, one-square village of 72 households in Moravian Silesia, he did not have enough money for a carriage, even if one of the miserable nags outside the station had been willing to move. So he started to walk.

This journey had started the day before, when the whole village had turned out to say good-bye. As is the case in small communities, everyone knew he was going on a train journey to Brno, the regional capitol south and west of their village. To the farmers of the Beskydy region even the nearest town of Olomouc, less than 30 kilometers away was a distant, frightening place and Brno was way beyond their most vivid imaginings. None of them had ever traveled, or would ever travel, more than a league from home in their entire lives. But for Makytta, this was a journey he had to make, whatever the cost. He was going to see and hear his star pupil give his first major scientific presentation.

He had not gone more than a few steps when he heard a voice call out behind him. "Herr Makytta, Herr Makytta."

He turned to see a well protected, round figure hurrying towards him across Hadrazni Street from the direction of the Petrov hill.

"Herr Makytta? Welcome, I'm Brother Matthew from the Monastery, Brother Gregory asked me to come and meet you." The speaker was a man of medium height, round of body and face with dark brown eyes and long furrows across his forehead. Wild grey hair was escaping from under his hood. He was wearing heavy boots and a woolen cape pulled up tight around his neck. "Did you have a good journey?"

Makytta nodded. "The train from Heinzendorf was slow, but warm and I was able to get food at Prerov."

Brother Matthew looked at his guest. He saw a small man in his late 70's with a wide face and an open countenance. Age sat well on him. Although long retired from his duties as schoolmaster in the local village school of Heinzendorf, Thomas Makytta had not slowed down and continued to take a strong interest in all his pupils, past and present.

Since his appointment in 1796, Thomas Makytta had always taught large classes in a strong, capable manner. Children had to be given different lessons according to their age and sometimes, when students could not pay the small fee for a class, they helped out in the school garden, or Makytta's own fields. Helped when ever possible by the local priest, Father Schreiber, Makytta had included basic natural history among the subjects he taught. Father Schreiber had once worked at the Kunin Philanthropinum where he had been instrumental in founding a fruit-tree nursery. Jointly the two men they liked to think that they had been somewhat influential in directing their star pupil, Johann Mendel, into a life long interest in the sciences.

"Come," said the monk striding off across the main street, "we must get to the Realschule. The meeting starts in less than an hour. I was late. I apologize."

"Not at all," mumbled Makytta hurrying after his guide, risking his neck as the two of them braved the hazardous cobbles that lined Masaryhova Street. Normally this main thoroughfare was crowded with people making their way up to Namesti Svobody, the central square of Brno, but today it was almost deserted. Even the hardy Czechs stayed in doors on days like this, so the two men had an unobstructed view of the Capuchin Crypt as they crossed Josefska and continued north.

"That's the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral," said Brother Matthew pointing to the imposing church on the Petrov hill to their left. Makytta obligingly looked at the needle-sharp Gothic spires that could hardly be missed, for they dominated the skyline for miles around. "During the thirty years war," Brother Matthew continued, "the Swedish general Tortennson besieged our town, but after fruitless months of getting nowhere, he declared that he would give up at mid-day if the town had not surrendered. Our bell-ringer, bless his name, seeing that the town was about to collapse, rang the mid-day bell an hour early. The Swedes gave up their siege and the city was saved. A grateful Habsburg emperor rewarded Brno by making it the capital of Moravia, or so the story goes." He said it with a shrug.

At the junction with Namesti Svobody square, the two men took a sharp right turn onto Janska Street and walked in the direction of the Loreto Chapel. Continuing his history lesson, Brother Matthew said, "The Realschule, where we are going, was opened in 1851, largely as a result of the efforts of Dr Auspitz, who you will be meeting. He, and Zawadski have had a lot to do with making the Natural History Society a big success, we have over 170 members now, and the number is still growing."

As they turned the corner, out of the wind, they almost bumped into a small group of men huddled outside the school building where the meeting was to take place. Brother Matthew greeted them warmly, but to a man the group collectively scowled back; the monk was not someone of whom the good German burgers of Brno approved. Brother Matthew Klacel was a known agitator, a Czech nationalist and had stirred up trouble and controversy more than once. But after giving the pair some black looks, they went on with their own conversation. Makytta heard them speak.

"Bismarck [see footnote] will move against us soon," said one, and the others nodded in agreement.

These were troubled times in eastern Europe. Just the year before, 1864, the Iron Chancellor of the German Confederation had marched his new Prussian Army into war with Denmark. That tiny country had collapsed almost without a fight, and the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had been added to the growing territories controlled by Prussia. Even in the hamlets of Moravia, Makytta knew that the Austrian Empire would be next. He hurried after the monk and inside the school.

Despite the climate, the spartan building was not heated. The new Realschule on Janska Street had been built by local industrialists in 1859, and they had not wished to spoil their students with too much distracting luxury. In the corridors the temperature was the same as it was outside, but at least the cutting wind stayed hammering on the outside of the thin window glass. Makytta followed the sound of voices to the lighted room where the meeting was to be held. Entering the auditorium he saw a janitor carrying a scuttle of coals to a small potbellied stove. It would not help. Nobody would be taking off their coats that evening.

By the door he caught up with the monk. Brother Matthew was sniffing the air and examining the group of men that had already arrived. "That's Schwippel," he said, pointing to an undistinguished, slightly nervous looking man who was hurrying around the room making agitated gestures. "He's the secretary of our Society, and a natural history teacher at the Brno Gymnasium." (a type of school). He looked around some more.

"Over there," he pointed to a group of three men, "the tall one with the dark coat, that's Zawadski, he's secretary to the committee and the real brains behind our little group. Without him I doubt we would have ever broken away from the Agricultural Society in '61."

Makytta looked puzzled, so Brother Matthew explained, "Until quite recently, the Brno Natural History Society was only a subsection of the Agricultural Society, but in '59 we came up with our own constitution, and in '61 or was it '62, we broke away and became independent." Klacel made it sound like the whole thing had been his idea, but then Brother Matthew liked revolutionary movements, and even the breakaway of the Society from its founding group was the sort of action of which he strongly approved.

With a grin, Brother Matthew threw in a tidbit of gossip, "Zawadski is a physicist and he used to teach at Lemberg University, but, for reasons I cannot tell you, he was deprived of his professorial chair in 1852 or 53, and if it wasn't for Auspitz, he would be out of a job now. But Auspitz hired him to teach in the Realschule in '54, and everyone agrees it was an inspired hiring."

"I don't see Count von Mittrowski however," he went on, "probably has more sense than to come out on a day like this. He's the President, but we won't see him tonight. Over there, though," he pointed again, "that's Theimer. He's our current vice president and a pharmacist here in Brno. He comes to all our meetings." Then he turned back to his guest.

"But, I'm forgetting, you came to see Brother Gregory, didn't you?"

"Yes, yes indeed," Makytta replied, nodding and wondering where his famous pupil was.

Brother Matthew smiled at the teacher. "I was so glad you could come. It is not often that someone from Hranice is honored in this way." Being an advocate for all things Czech, Klacel had used the Czech name for Mendel's village. "I think you will enjoy seeing Johann Mendel again. But I must warn you, he is not he boy you and Father Schreiber had in your classes. But in other ways he is still the same. He still gets ill every time he takes examinations." At this the pair laughed, Mendel was notorious for failing examinations and becoming ill as a result.

Has he changed that much? wondered Makytta, thinking back to the thin son of a peasant farmer who had presented himself at the schoolhouse door in 1832. Anton Mendel, the father, had been born in Heinzendorf (as Makytta still liked to think of it because most of the villagers considered themselves ethnic Germans) in 1789 and was a veteran of the Napoleonic wars. Mendel's son, named Johann, had been born on July 22, 1822, and the family had made many sacrifices to get him an education, starting with the village school built and begun by Mendel's great uncle, A. Schwirtlich.

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Chapter Two

Enter the Speaker

Few families, in those days, could afford to educate their children, but Johann had been Anton's only male child and his father had wanted him to succeed. In Thomas Makytta's school, the young Mendel had been an outstanding pupil, and had quickly impressed his two teachers. Schoolteacher Makytta and Father Schreiber soon took notice of young Mendel, and felt it their duty to inform his parents of their gifted child. Without telling Anton Mendel, they sent Johann to the Piarist school in Leipnik, about 25 kilometers from the village, to have him tested. The results were outstanding. Consequently a nervous Johann Mendel entered third grade in 1833 and in the following year moved to the Gymnasium in Opava, which was located even further from home.

Thomas Makytta could still remember the heartache this move had caused Mendel's family. His father was in debt, was paying off a loan that he had taken to build his house, and worked three days a week for his landlord, this being an obligation in the feudal Habsburg Empire. To supplement his cash income, Anton Mendel used his team of horses, unique in his village at that time, to cart lime from a nearby kiln. But, even so, there was little money left over to educate their son in distant Opava. An ever-hungry Johann could only be offered half-board and his bed, but his mother regularly sent him produce from the farm. Mendel would only see his family, and his two teachers, on holidays when he would make the laborious 36 kilometer journey back to Heinzendorf.

At the end of each term, the rapidly maturing Mendel would bring home his grades, and proudly show his family the excellent results he was obtaining in subjects such as meteorology and philosophy. This partially reassured Anton and supported his hard decision to educate Johann, for, by now, he had almost given up the idea of his son every taking over the farm. It also made it easier for Johann to give lessons to his less gifted school friends, and so supplement his very meager existence.

Young Mendel spent six years in Opava, under less than ideal conditions. When, towards the end, things got worse. Makytta vividly remembered the series of disasters that struck Heinzendorf and the Mendel family when Johann was only sixteen. Bad harvests left Anton completely unable to support his son and the only way Mendel could continue his education was if he provided for himself. Fortunately he was able to take a course for School Candidates and Private Teachers, pass an examination and get a strong recommendation. So, for the rest of his time in Opava, Mendel earned a pitiful living as a private tutor.

Just before he graduated from the Gymnasium, the load on young Johann's shoulders became heavier. Working in his landlord's forest, Anton Mendel suffered a serious injury and at Whitsuntide summoned his son home for the rest of the year. Even so, Mendel finished at the Opava Gymnasium, and graduated in 1840.

Although he desperately wanted to continue his education, and indeed registered for classes at the Philosophy Institute in Olomouc, he could not find a means to support himself and he fell sick. Father Schreiber helped him return home and 18 year old Johann spent the next year recovering his health on the family farm. It was during this time that Makytta frequently saw the village priest and the serious student working together in the fruit-tree nursery.

Countess Truchsess-Zeil wanted to improve the stamina and the yield of the fruit trees grown by her villagers, but centuries of tradition had prevented the local farmers from accepting the new fangled varieties she had obtained from France. Father Schreiber, knowing his parishioners well, had issued orders, in the name of the Countess, that the new fruit-tree seedlings were to be strictly guarded and that anyone caught stealing them would be severely punished. Within a few days, all the seedlings had vanished and the villagers grew them and their descendants for many years - with greatly improved results.

After a year at home, and with his health restored, Mendel continued his studies in the natural sciences at the Philosophical Institute at Olomouc. He needed two years of preparation in 'philosophical study' before he could enter any University in the Habsburg Empire, and by now Mendel knew that he wanted to go to University more than anything.

There were, however, two major problems; his father was no longer able to work, because of the old injury, and Mendel could speak no Czech. Olomouc was a town were Czech was the dominant language, and his deficiency made it almost impossible for him to teach and so earn a living. Once again he was destitute and unable to pay for the next phase of his education.

Fortunately his elder sister had just married and the newly weds agreed to take over the family farm. As part of the agreement, Johann was given a 100 florins a year to continue his studies. Secretly his youngest sister also helped by offering him part of her dowry, an act of kindness Mendel was able to repay many years later when he supported all her three sons during their studies. Despite the generosity of his family, Mendel still had to teach for extra money, attend twenty hours of classes in a range of subjects, study and meet regularly with his tutors. Over the next two years the strain steadily became too much.

Fortunately he had a talent for the study of physics. Professor Franz, who taught this subject, liked Mendel and looked for ways of helping him. Once, while working in Brno, Franz had stayed at the Augustinian monastery of Saint Thomas, and had been asked by the new and vigorous Abbot Cyrill Napp to keep an eye open for bright young students. In a letter dated July 14th, 1843, Franz recommended only one student; Johann Mendel.

Following Franz's advice, Mendel finished his philosophical studies at Olomouc University and applied for admission as a novice in the Augustinian Monastery in Brno. The year was 1843. Financial worries had plagued him throughout his academic career, circumstances he could no longer fight now directed his vocational choice. So long as he fulfilled his clerical duties, the life of a monk at this particular monastery, would offer him the rare opportunity to devote himself to private study in a supportive atmosphere. He applied.

Out of thirteen candidates, Mendel was shortlisted as one of four for the novitiate, and, despite his weakness in the Czech language, received strong recommendations. On September 7th, 1843, without even coming for the traditional interview, he was accepted into the Brno Monastery and on October 9th began both his novitiate and his new name - Gregor. The years of bitter struggle were behind him and he was now free him to continue his first love - science.

Thomas Makytta's reminiscences were cut short by a flurry of activity at the doorway. A burst of cold air announced new arrivals.

"Brother Gregory, Abbot Napp so good of you to come," Secretary Dr Schwippel hurried up to his guests. Makytta turned towards the voice. "Welcome, welcome," hurried on the Secretary, anxiously bobbing up and down. Abbot Napp was a well known and influential figure in Brno; his good opinion was vital to the natural history teacher. Also, it was hard to get speakers for the Society, especially in the middle of a harsh winter. "Come, warm up by the stove."

Accompanied by the Secretary, the small group of men moved a little closer to the radiant heat, but none of them took off their outer garments. Makytta got his first look at Mendel in many years and what he saw came as a bit of a shock. His old pupil was now a man of middle age and medium height with broad-shoulders and a stocky build. At 43 the monk was already becoming a little corpulent, but his large head and high forehead bespoke of a ready intelligence. Around his blue eyes Mendel wore thin, gold rimmed glasses and his mouth frequently broke into warm smiles. A friendly expression was never far from Mendel's face.

Brother Matthew saw Makytta's surprise and quickly guessed it's source.

"You expected a monk, did you not?" he said with a grin.

"Ahh, well, yes," the schoolteacher could not help admitting and shook his head. What he saw did not fit his expectations in the least. Unlike Brother Matthew and the Abbot, Brother Gregory was not wearing traditional priests' clerical robes, but a well worn frock-coat at least one size too big for him. Under the coat he had short trousers tucked into scuffed top-boots, making him look more like a shopkeeper than a member of a religious order.

"Thanks to Emperor Josef II," explained Brother Matthew, "our monks are obliged to serve the state as well as God. Since the great closings in 1782, when most of the monasteries were abolished, we have been required to help in parishes, hospitals and schools. Our Augustinian monastery was not dissolved, but it was moved to its present location, and, in 1807 Emperor Franz I, required us to teach mathematics and biblical studies in the Philosophy Institute and Brno theology college."

He saw that the schoolteacher was not following his reasoning, so he hurried on, "It's a long story, but, simply put, Brother Gregory is one of those that teaches classes here at the Realschule. When he is engaged in his non-religious duties he is allowed to wear civilian clothing."

"Ah," smiled Makytta, then to cover his embarrassment, "who is that standing beside him?"

Brother Matthew needed no prompting to impart more information and gossip. "That's our Abbot," he said affectionately, "a noble and true friend to God and science, to say nothing of his love of the monastery and his monks." He coughed. "If it was not for this man, I would not still be in the monastery. Such a soul. He will go straight to heaven."

Makytta peered at the subject of this veneration. What he saw was a round monk, somewhat shorter than Mendel, but well dressed in plain robes with a bright sash around his middle. A simple silver cross hung around his neck. But it was the face that Makytta told the whole story. Here was a man who had used his broad knowledge of the world to good effect. A practical man with considerable organizational skills who had accepted with considerable enthusiasm the imperial directive for his monks to teach. Although forbidden to enter a classroom himself, he had recruited monks with ability, helped train and further their education, and then used all his influence to place them in the best schools and better locations.

"So good of you to come out on a night like this," continued the Secretary, his voice raising to almost a squeak, "we are all looking forward to your talk, Brother Gregory. About beans, isn't it?"

Brother Gregory coughed. "Peas, [see footnote]" he said quietly.

"Oh yes, of course, peas," replied the Secretary, twisting his hands and avoiding looking into his guest's face. "Yes, peas."

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Chapter Three

Old Friends

"Herr Doktor Schwippel," interjected Abbot Napp smoothly. "It is good to see you again. These meetings are always a simulating environment for philosophical exchange. But may I introduce you to Brother Timothy. He has only recently rejoined us in the monastery, but already he is proving very valuable."

Secretary Dr. Schwippel did not like what he saw. Brother Timothy was an exceedingly tall, spare man, of indeterminate age, but probably older than Mendel. Locks of dark, lank, wavy hair fell backwards down his long neck and overlapped his collar. But on top of his head nature had thinned out the hair to faint wisps that only served to emphasize a boney forehead. An aquiline, pointed nose separated deep-set, dark eyes that held no warmth. Thin lips constantly rubbed together and never turned upwards in pleasure or a smile. Brother Timothy was not the sort of man with whom Secretary Schwippel liked to do business. Soft hearted himself, Schwippel recognized, in an instinctive, animalistic way the latent danger lurking behind the smooth faced monk. It would be dangerous to have Brother Timothy as an enemy, and behind you. The timid natural history teacher gave an internal shiver and nervously glanced around the room, looking for an excuse to escape.

"Excuse me, Brother Gregory, Abbot Napp, but I must greet our members and their guests," he said, backing away. "But after your presentation, perhaps we could talk? We need to resolve some matters about the new honorary members of our Society." At its founding, the Natural Science Society had voted to propose twenty-four honorary members, including Abbot Napp. Now there was a movement to increase that number.

"Of course, Herr Schwippel," said Abbot Napp. He had noticed the snubbing of Brother Timothy. "We are at your service." He too looked around the room, and spotted an important member by the window. "Brother Gregory, we will leave you to prepare. Come Brother Timothy." He strode off with as much dignity as his round frame afforded, his boots clicking on the tiled floor. With a slight bow to Secretary Schwippel, for he too had noticed the discourtesy, Brother Timothy moved after his superior. But his feet made no sound on the tiles.

"Come," Schwippel said to Brother Gregory with some visible relief, "your guest has arrived." He plucked at the monk's sleeve, and turned him in the direction of Makytta and Brother Matthew, who had stayed back during the previous exchange.

"Johann!," said Makytta opening his arms and moving forward to hug his former pupil. Then he hurriedly corrected himself, "Er, Brother Gregory, it is good to see you again after all these years." Mendel's face broke into one of its famous smiles and his eyes lit up behind the gold rimmed glasses.

"Herr Makytta," he exclaimed with delight, "is that really you, let me hold you". The two men clasped each other warmly and drew together.

"You are cold, come closer to the stove. When did you arrive?" beamed Mendel, glad to see his old mentor after almost 20 years.

"My train arrived only a couple of hours ago," replied the school teacher, "Brother Matthew met me and we came straight here." Gratefully he moved into the small circle of warmth and peered at his former pupil.

"Ever since I saw the announcement of your talk to the Society I wanted to see you again. It was good of you to invite me." He grasped Mendel's arms in his hands and pulled him close. "They still remember you in the village, and Theresa constantly reminds everyone how well you are doing." Mendel's round cheeks blushed with pride and embarrassment. He was not normally a demonstrative person, and he flushed easily at compliments.

"That is very kind," he stammered, "Theresa is a wonderful sister, but what could possibly interest you in my humble work?"

Thomas Makytta laughed, "Don't you remember, how you used to help Father Schreiber with his fruit trees? Those thousands of seeds he and you collected and planted that summer. If I remember correctly, wasn't it Schreiber who became a founding member of the Pomological Association?"

"It was," agreed Mendel, "you and he taught me much that I value. I still use some of the classroom techniques I learnt in your school."

"So you still teach?" replied Makytta, it being his turn to blush at the complement.

"Yes," replied the monk, "here at the local high school. I find it very rewarding. But," he grinned, "I never make my pupils clean out the chicken coup." At this the two men laughed. It was a long standing tradition at the village school, where funds were always short and classes always large, that older pupils helped pay for their tuition by assisting the school teacher in unauthodox ways.

They laughed. "So how long will you be able to stay in Brno?"

"I retired several years ago, and I now clean out my own chicken coup," replied Makytta, drying his eyes. "I can stay as long as I like."

"Good, good," said Mendel. Then he turned to Brother Matthew, "We can have him as our guest at the monastery."

"Of course," agreed Brother Matthew, "I'll take care of him. But shouldn't you be preparing for your talk? There will be plenty of time to catch up on old memories later."

Guiltily, Mendel nodded. "You are right, I must give a good talk and I would welcome the opportunity to go over my data again. But come, let me find you some seats."

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Chapter Four

A Fine Cigar

Mendel saw his friends seated, looked round the room and moved away from the growing group of visitors. He was, at heart, a shy man and did not like social small talk. Picking up his cheap leather bag, he extracted a sheet of notes that he was going to use that evening.

Sighing, he turned some of the pages. There was much to say, and even though he had been over the data a hundred times since agreeing to give this presentation, he still wanted to go over them again. Squinting slightly, for his eyes were not strong, he studied the neat columns of numbers written in brown ink on cheap paper. His monastery was not rich, and Abbot Napp took pains to save a coin wherever he could.

Quickly he was immersed in the data. Each left-hand column listed dates, plantings and when the samples were counted. Next to them were the raw numbers that represented pea plants analyzed, and in the final columns, the ratios. It was these ratios that were important. All of the rest of the data were, in themselves, unintelligible. No two numbers were the same, and almost all of them listed totals in the hundreds. After each cluster of values, he had performed a simple mathematical calculation; the larger number had been divided by the smaller number to give a ratio. A simple enough calculation, but one that brought the jumble of data into crisp clarity. From all the hundreds of pea plants analyzed, one ratio stood out over and over again; 3:1. Out of every four plants checked that fall, three showed one clear characteristic and the fourth showed a different characteristic. He sighed again; how could he make his colleagues in the Society understand the significance of these ratios.

"Mendel," said a brisk voice behind him. Brother Gregory jumped. "What do you think?" Facing the monk was a tall, heavily built man of middle years. "Came in from the Americas just this morning." To emphasize his curious remark, the tall man waved a cigar under Mendel's nose. "Best quality. Got through the Union blockage three weeks ago."

"Ah," said Mendel, "the cigar." Like the industrialist who stood before him, Mendel loved cigars. It was his vice. Every day, Mendel smoked at least twenty cigars, but ones of good quality had become very expensive during the American civil war [see footnote], and the Union blockage of the southern states. "Indeed, it burns well," he continued, sniffing the smoke enviously.

"Finest leaf," agreed the German, "Connecticut grown from Havana Seeds. Absolutely the best." In the early 1800's the finest Havana tobacco seeds had been introduced into the United States. Wrapper leaves were grown in Florida and Connecticut, but the best came from the Northern States of the Union. Cigar wrappers were the most difficult and costly to grow and these shade grown leaves had come from the Connecticut Valley, where the plants had been raised totally under cheese cloth. The filler tobacco, however, was grown in Georgia and Florida, states that the German considered rebels. Getting the two types of leaves together in time of war was not easy, and the supply of fine American cigars had fallen off dramatically.

A resident of Brno, the cigar fancier, was a second generation German industrialist who had made several fortunes manufacturing textiles and selling cloth to the Prussian army. He had a weaving plant and textile factory in Namest, a small town to the north-west of Brno, where an industrial base had been developing rapidly since 1766. Over twenty modern cloth factories now earned Brno the nickname 'rakousky Manchestr' (Austrian Manchester), after the famous English town that had pioneered the use of machines to weave cheap cloth.

He could afford the best. But when he wasn't supplying Bismark's military machine with woven wool, the industrialist Grunewald was also a keen physicist and mathematician.

"The supplier had interesting news of the Americas," he went on contentedly. "The war is almost over. Jefferson Davis has appointed Lee the Commander-in-Chief of all the Confederate forces, but Richmond is doomed. The North is ravaging the Confederacy from top to bottom. My supplier, a British merchant, said that Sherman has inflicted such damage on the south it will take generations to recover."

"Ah," said Mendel again. He had only understood one word in three of Grunewald's news, not being a person who kept himself current with overseas events.

"I hope you have something interesting to tell us tonight," Grunewald went on, ignoring Mendel's discomfiture. "Brother Timothy tells me you have been digging away in your garden like a badger." Unlike Secretary Schwippel, the industrialist rather liked Brother Timothy.

"Indeed," coughed Mendel, "my work does require a lot of digging. But its significance lies in the mathematical treatment of the data."

"Excellent," beamed the industrialist, "numbers, data, facts, Mendel; remember that. Keep to the facts. Avoid all that mushy plant stuff. No one wants to hear about bugs and beetles. Keep to the facts." He puffed out his remarks in a cloud of aromatic smoke.

"I'll try," Mendel responded as best he could. As one of the richer founding members of their society, Grunewald felt he could dictate policy to the rest of the seminar committee. His opinions weighed heavily in the choice of topics for their meetings.

"Good, good." The German stamped his feet, not in anger but at the cold striking up through the tiled floor of the Realschule. "I'll bring you a box or two." He waved the cigar again, and switched the subject of his conversation once more. "I have a couple of business friends staying with me at the moment. I told them of your talk, but they had other plans for today, however they want to meet you. I'll bring them by the Monastery tomorrow and I'll bring you some cigars."

Colleagues often had a hard time keeping up with the rapid changes that accompanied talks with Herr Grunewald.

"I would be glad to meet your friends, and very grateful for the cigars," said Mendel sincerely, his needs were modest, but his weakness for cigars was well known among his science friends, inside and outside of the Monastery.

"Oh, Romer came with me, he wants to hear your talk and tell you more about his hybrids," Grunewald went on, ignoring Mendel's response. C. Romer was a clerk in Grunewald's factory, and an enthusiastic collector of plants and plant hybrids from around the Brno area.

"Herr Romer's work is always interesting," said Mendel politely. "I would be glad to discuss his current findings."

"Can't stand his twitterings myself," said Grunewald, bluntly. "Also, he never does anything with his collections, just labels them and puts them away in drawers. What good it that I ask you?" He did not expect a reply and did not wait for one. "Remember when Theimer bored us to tears with his 'hybrid forms' in '62?" Mendel nodded, remembering quite well Carl Theimer's very interesting talk. It had been given shortly after the breakaway Society had begun its own meetings. But it was no good trying to change Grunewald's impression. Any type of science without numbers in it did not interest the industrialist weaver.

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Chapter Five

Let Us Begin

"Gentlemen," called out Vice President Carl Theimer from across the cold tiles, "should we begin." It was not a question, and obediently, all those assembled politely terminated their conversations and moved to the front of the room where hard wooden chairs had been placed in precise rows. Mendel and Grunewald went with them.

"Tonight we have a great honor," the Vice President told the forty citizens of Brno, after they had taken their seats. "Yes, a great honor. It is not often that Brother Gregory agrees to tell us something of his work, but tonight he has relented." He paused for effect, and looked over his glasses at the men before him. Each was in early middle age or older; each was soberly dressed in dark colors. The only hint of frivolity was the occasional fur collar around the neck of the greatcoats, which had not yet been removed. Casting his eye over the group, the Chairman saw that Mendel had attracted a very small crowd. A few naturalists, like himself, who had been intrigued by remarks the monk had made the previous year about plant grafting. A scattering of astronomers, were supplemented by chemists and physicists, like Grunewald. All of them were solid Brno citizens who had braved a very cold night to hear Mendel speak. Although he was popular enough, Brother Gregory was not an inspiring speaker and tended to belabor his points ad nauseam.

There was a scattering of applause, and much shuffling of seats. It was cold and most in the room just wanted to get to the talk.

But the Vice President was not to be put off, he presided over the meetings of the society and enjoyed his time in the limelight. "As you know," he went on, "Brother Gregory's garden has been the subject of much interest these last few years. I myself have often seen him digging away as soon as the frost has ended each spring." In this the Vice President exaggerated somewhat; he had never actually seen the monk digging, but it was the kind of remark he was fond of making.

"And tonight we will get to hear all the results he has dug up." If he had expected a polite laugh at his small attempt at humor, the Vice President was doomed to disappointment. All he got was more scraping as chairs were adjusted across the floor.

"Hummmp," he cleared his throat and hurried on, "but what am I saying. Brother Gregory can speak for himself. Gentlemen, please join me in giving a warm welcome to one of our own founding members, who tonight will enlighten us on the subject of ...". He floundered and looked desperately at the monk.

"Versuche uber Pflanzenhybriden" [see footnote] ("Experiments with Plant Hybrids"), he said quietly in German, the language of science in the Austrian Empire.

"Good, excellent," said Theimer enthusiastically, "plant hybrids. Brother Gregory."

Few of warmly coated men sitting in the Realschule that February evening could have imagined the significance of what they were about to hear, least of all Brother Timothy. He sat beside Abbot Napp in the front row of seats and kept his long fingers uncomfortably twisted on his lap. Behind him, Brother Matthew stared at the long hair and longed to grab a handful and pull. For he knew better than most that Brother Timothy was an ambitious fanatic who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. There were only two things important to Brother Timothy; the Word of God and the future of Brother Timothy.

Since coming to the Augustinian Monastery in 1834, the ambitious monk had made a very careful study of his fellow clerics, and then had begun his climb towards the abbacy. Like Mendel he had attended Olomouc Philosophy Institute and had been given the opportunity to study at Vienna University by Abbot Napp, the man he hoped to replace one day. Brother Matthew ground his teeth as he remembered the day Brother Timothy returned to the monastery. In that year Klacel had gained a friend and also had become Brother Timothy's first victim. By devious means, including leaking Klacel's private papers to the local authorities, Brother Timothy had arranged for Brother Matthew to be dismissed from his teaching post, and had promptly taken it over for himself. From 1843 to 1851, Brother Timothy had taught philosophy in Brno in place of Klacel.

With Klacel out of the way, the ambitious monk had soon identified Brother Gregory as the next obstacle to be removed. Not that Brother Gregory knew or understood his role as appointed victim. Mendel was quietly popular among the Brothers at the Monastery. He served the Lord and his garden equally, but never made a fuss or even lost his temper when one of the local boys picked his experimental peas for dinner one evening, ruining almost a year's work. He was good at paper work, and even better at resolving the various disputes that occasionally erupted among the Brothers; religious or secular. But his love (after God) was science. As Brother Timothy knew only too well, Mendel had a good background in the subject, having studied with F. Diebl in the Brno Philosophical Institute, and F. Unger at the University of Vienna. Diebl had published a four volume book on plant breeding which had been required reading during Mendel's time there in 1846.

This important book described how wild plants could be tamed and cultivated into improved forms by artificial pollination. It also described techniques for crossing one plant with another, blossom anatomy, and, after pollination, how to collect the seeds; all topics which were to be critical in Mendel's own work.

Not knowing the what was going on in the minds of at least some of his audience, Mendel moved to the front of the room and cleared his throat. Sitting liked a cat watching a mouse, Brother Timothy listened as Mendel began to describe what he had done.

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Chapter Six

Opening Remarks

"Experience of artificial fertilization," Mendel began, looking owlishly through his glasses, "such as is effected with ornamental plants in order to obtain new variations in color, has led to the experiments which will here be discussed." He paused, coughed and continued in soft German, "The striking regularity with which the same hybrid forms always reappeared whenever fertilization took place between the same species induced further experiments to be undertaken, the object of which was to follow up the developments of the hybrids in their progeny."

"To this object numerous careful observers, such as Kolreuter, Gartner, Herbert, Lecoq, Wichura [see footnote] and others, have devoted a part of their lives with inexhaustible perseverance."

Which is more than I have, thought Brother Timothy, and tuned out the next pedantic sentences, thinking instead of how easy it had been to manipulate the gullible Mendel. After his book, The Anatomy and Esthetics of Plants had been published in 1853, he has signed a copy and presented it to Mendel personally. Delighted at the attention, Mendel had reciprocated and allowed Brother Timothy to examine his own data on plant hybridization.

Their seemingly cordial relationship had been interrupted briefly when Brother Timothy had taken a post as research assistant to Professor Hanus in Lemberg University, but had picked up again after his recent return to the monastery. It had not been hard to get Mendel to propose him as a member of the new Natural History society and become an elected member in 1863. Everyone in the monastery knew that he was a particular favorite of Abbot Napp, who considered him an outstanding scientist. Many already considered him the leading contender for Napp's abbacy a delightful train of thought lasted long enough for Mendel to reach the next part of his presentation.

"The value and utility of any experiment is determined by the fitness of the material [see footnote] to the purpose for which it is used, and thus in the case before us it cannot be immaterial what plants are subjected to experiment and in what manner such experiment is conducted." For the first time, Mendel looked up from his notes and glanced at his audience. Makytta and Brother Matthew were still listening attentively, but Grunewald's eyes were already beginning to glaze over. At least nobody was asleep yet.

He continued, "The selection of the plant group which shall serve for experiments of this kind must be made with all possible care if it be desired to avoid from the outset every risk of questionable results."

"The experimental plants must necessarily:

"(1) Possess constant differentiating characteristics.

"(2) The hybrids of such plants must, during the flowering period, be protected from the influence of all foreign pollen, or be easily capable of such protection.

"The hybrids and their offspring should suffer no marked disturbance in their fertility in the successive generations." And so it went.

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Chapter Seven

Interruption

"At the very outset," he said firmly, "special attention was devoted to the Leguminosae on account of their peculiar floral structure [see footnote]. Experiments which were made with several members of this family led to the result that the genus Pisum was found to possess the necessary qualifications."

At this, Brother Timothy pricked up his ears and allowed himself and internal smile; the only kind he allowed himself. When Mendel had returned from his short University experience, he had brought with him the beginnings of an idea concerning the mechanism of heredity and had asked Klacel and others about the best possible research material with which to test out his ideas. Remembering problems that he had encountered while trying to work with the genus Hieracium, Brother Timothy had slyly suggested to the enthusiastic monk that he try forming hybrids with these plants, knowing full well the difficulties and delays he would encounter.

Others in the Monastery had proposed experiments using mice, but the Abbot had vetoed the idea as being too close to idolatry and blasphemy against God. Plants were safe, and the common pea plant, which was Napp's choice, had no religious constituency. Eventually Mendel had diplomatically agreed with his Abbot and began his experiments using the common garden pea, but not before Brother Timothy had delayed him for a year or two.

"In all," said Mendel, "34 more or less distinct varieties of peas were obtained from several seedsmen and subjected to a two year's trial. In the case of one variety there were noticed, among a larger number of plants all alike, a few forms which were markedly different. These, however, did not vary in the following year, and agreed entirely with another variety obtained from the same seedsman; the seeds were therefore doubtless merely accidentally mixed." If he had expected sympathy at this result, he did not get it, so he continued, "All the other varieties yielded perfectly constant and similar offspring; at any rate, no essential difference was observed during two trial years." A smile, "For fertilization [see footnote] 22 of these were selected and cultivated during the whole period of the experiments. They remained constant without any exception." - a key point that he wanted to emphasize. One of the reasons he felt that he had been successful [see footnote], was the fact that the starting material for his experiments were some how "pure" and gave constant varieties of offspring during his hybridizations.

"Brother Gregory," interrupted Brother Timothy, smoothly between sentences. "To what species did this pea plants belong? Would that not be critical to your work?" It was rare for a presentation to be disturbed in this way, but Brother Timothy had prepared his own ground very carefully and knew that this point was the first weakness in Mendel's paper. In the seat next to him, he felt Abbot Napp stir, but he didn't take his eyes off Mendel. This was a critical moment. If the presenter hesitated, he knew he would have scored his first small victory, and also broken the monk's rhythm.

But Mendel, after getting over the shock of having his talk interrupted, simply shuffled some of his notes, and replied, "According to the opinion of experts, the majority of the plants I used, belong to the species Pisum sativum; while the rest are regarded and classed, some as sub-species of P. sativum, and some as independent species, such as P. quadratum, P. saccharatum, and P. umbellatum." He paused, adjusted his round glasses and stared over them directly at Brother Timothy. "The positions, however, which may be assigned to them in a classificatory system [see footnote] are quite immaterial for the purposes of the experiments in question. It has so far been found to be just as impossible to draw a sharp line between the hybrids of species and varieties as between species and varieties themselves."

A barely suppressed chuckle ran around the room, starting with snort of delight from Brother Matthew. It was not unusual for spirited debate to spring up between scientific antagonists, as the holders of one opinion tried to discredit the opinions of a contrary position. Most of the time, however, debating points were scored by those who either posed an impossible question, while making it seem eminently reasonable, or by those who could answer an impossible question with a straight face and without loosing their dignity. Loss of face was is only defeat that matters in science, a fact most professional practitioners recognize. It was good to see that Brother Gregory could give as well as he got. Rubbing their hands, not entirely to get them warm again, the audience settled down. Perhaps this talk was going to be better than expected.

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Chapter Eight

The Data

Capitalizing on his small victory, Mendel came at once to the heart of his thesis, "If two plants which differ constantly in one or several characters be crossed, numerous experiments have demonstrated that the common characters are transmitted unchanged to the hybrids and their progeny." Consistency, thought Mendel, the transmitting element [see footnote] is constant, not a fluid. Unger, his mentor at the University of Vienna, would be very interested in this result, he had frequently stated in his lectures that the transmission mechanism [see footnote] was unknown, although he has once written, "embryo formation is determined by both sides (i.e. both parents) and represents the middle way. The middle forms are a mixture of characters."

Continuing, "But each pair of differentiating characters [see footnote], on the other hand, unite in the hybrid to form a new character, which in the progeny of the hybrid is usually variable. The object of the experiment was to observe these variations in the case of each pair of differentiating characters, and to deduce the law according to which they appear in successive generations. The experiment resolves itself therefore into just as many separate experiments as there are constantly differentiating characters presented in the experimental plants."

This was the key, each parent donated a transmission element to the hybrid. These elements combined in the hybrid to produce a new character, and in subsequent progeny from these hybrids, the original characters sorted themselves out according to laws, which Mendel felt he had untangled.

Had Mendel been a more effective presenter, he would have paused dramatically at this point, and then rammed home the significance of his findings. Brother Timothy held his breath. An effective communicator himself, he recognized that Mendel had reached a critical point in his paper. He need not have worried. In that cold, Realschule auditorium, Mendel, the discoverer of a new branch of biological science, turned the page of his notes, continued his talk in the only way he knew, and vanished from the pages of science history for 30 years.

"Each two of the differentiating characters enumerated above were united by cross-fertilization [see footnote]," he said, and because he never made an unsubstantiated statement, he went on, "There were made for the

1st trial 60 fertilizations on 15 plants.

2nd trial 58 fertilizations on 10 plants.

3rd trial 35 fertilizations on 10 plants.

4th trial 40 fertilizations on 10 plants.

5th trial 23 fertilizations on 5 plants.

6th trial 34 fertilizations on 10 plants.

7th trial 37 fertilizations on 10 plants.

"The plants were grown in garden beds, a few also in pots, and were

maintained in their natural upright position by means of sticks, branches of trees, and strings stretched between. For each experiment a number of pot plants were placed during the blooming period in a greenhouse, to serve as control plants [see footnote] for the main experiment ..."

The data and the details droned on and on. Even his friends from the monastery and his old schoolteacher, try as they might, lost interest as Mendel explained every tiny aspect of pea plant growth and differentiation. Even the upright Germans began to slump in their chairs, and the less patient Grunewald took out another cigar and pointedly lit it. This was not what he had come to hear.

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Chapter Nine

Help from the Teacher

Eventually Mendel began to describe the various forms his hybrids took, but it was too late. When he finally came to the statement that has been a staple in all biology textbooks ever since, practically no one in the room grasped its importance, and Brother Timothy was the only person still having a good time.

"In this generation," Mendel continued, unaware that he had lost his audience, "there reappear, together with the dominant characters, also the recessive ones with their peculiarities fully developed, and this occurs in the definitely expressed average proportion of 3:1 [see footnote] , so that among each 4 plants of this generation 3 display the dominant character and one the recessive. This relates without exception to all the characters which were investigated in the experiments."

Sensing that the small group of members was growing hostile, the school teacher from Heinzendorf tried to rescue his friend, "Brother Gregory, do you remember the work we did together with Father Schreiber using fruit trees? We often seemed to find hybrids that never looked like the parent plants. Didn't you find any pea plants that were a mixture of your characteristics?"

Mendel blinked. "Ahh," he said, and looked directly at Herr Makytta, "a good question, and vital to my thesis. All the characters that were investigated [see footnote] in these experiments; the angular wrinkled form of the seed, the green color of the albumen, the white color of the seed-coats ..." He went on to list all the various pea characteristics that he had investigated, concluding, "... and the dwarfed stem, all reappear in the numerical proportion I have given here, without any essential alteration." Then the important statement, "Transitional forms were not observed in any experiment." He made the point forcefully. It had been a critical discovery that characters did not 'blend' into one another like pots of paint.

All the naturalists in the room, at least those familiar with Diebl and Unger's work, were aware of the debate about inheritance. One school of thought was that children inherited a 'fluid' [see footnote] (and some thought this fluid came exclusively from the father) in which there was a blend of characters such as the distinctive Habsburg nose, or Mendel's seed shape. This 'blend' determined the appearance of the offspring. If they had been listening that evening, they would have heard Mendel put the nail in that coffin. Characters do not blend during the inheritance process. Mendel had shown that characters such as the color of seed-coats are transmitted intact from parent to child, generation after generation. It was an important discovery.

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Chapter Ten

The Questions

But Mendel had forgotten Brother Timothy.

"Brother Gregory, did I hear you correctly when you said that it was not important where and when the seed pods developed on your plants? Do all the pods and all the seeds behave the same?" It was a vicious question. For several years Brother Timothy had been watching, waiting and reading Mendel's notes. In innocent seeming debate he had asked the honest Monk leading questions, and flattered by the interest, Mendel had occasionally admitted to some of his research problems. From these admissions, Brother Timothy felt he knew where the weaknesses lay in Brother Gregory's work. He was just starting to use that knowledge.

"Basically yes," admitted Mendel in a soft voice. It was barely noticeable, but he had hesitated before giving his answer. Also the response had been evasive, a common trait for speakers on soft ground. But the ever-alert Brother Timothy sensed where to go next.

"But is it not true that the order in which the pods form on your plants has an important role to play in the manner in which the seeds form?" Brother Timothy was relentless.

As if speaking from a long way away, Mendel replied, "In some few plants only a few seeds developed in the first formed pods, and these possessed exclusively one of the two characters, but in the subsequently developed pods the normal proportions were maintained nevertheless." Even he heard the weakness in the excuse, and several people in the audience coughed. Brother Matthew put his head in his hands and looked down at the floor.

"As in separate pods, so did the distribution of the characters vary in separate plants. Did it not?" asked Brother Timothy, his voice like silk. It is easy to ask good questions when you already know the answers. He was sitting on the edge of his seat and staring directly at the increasingly uncomfortable Mendel.

"Somewhat," Mendel admitted reluctantly, shuffling his notes and not looking at Brother Timothy directly.

Like an anthropologist encountering a new behavior in a study population, teacher Makytta was watching a ritual of science; the ruthless tearing down of a presentation by an opponent in the audience. Regardless of its merits, any scientific position is always open to attack. Most outside the profession thinks that these attacks are in the interests of truth, for the elimination of falsehood, and are essential parts of the scientific method. They rarely are. Ego and ambition are greater driving forces in the pursuit of new discoveries than idealistic searches for the truth.

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Chapter Eleven

More Questions

"Let me remind you of some of the data you presented earlier, Brother Gregory," continued Brother Timothy. "You reported extremes in the distribution of the two seed characters in one plant." He smiled, and went on, "In experiment number one you said you found an instance of 43 round and only 2 angular, and another of 14 round and 15 angular seeds. Am I correct?" Mendel could just nod, he had indeed reported such numbers, but only Brother Timothy had understood them. "And in experiment number two there was, not only a case of 32 yellow and only 1 green seed, but also one of 20 yellow and 19 green, was there not?" Again the nod. "According to my calculations, none of these data give ratios of 3:1, the way you reported. Do you have an explanation?"

After thinking for a moment, Mendel replied, "The two experiments you mention are important for the determination of the average ratios, because with a smaller number of experimental plants they show that very considerable fluctuations may occur. [see footnote]"

"Ahh," snorted Brother Timothy, interrupting Mendel's answer, another tactic in scientific debate. "And how easy was it to determine the exact color of the seeds? It has been my experience that there is a lot of subjective judgment required."

"Very true, Brother Timothy," said Mendel, "In counting the seeds especially in experiment number two, some care was required. In some of the seeds of many plants the green color of the albumen is less developed, and at first may be easily overlooked."

"Don't you find that makes the impartial determination of your results hard to accept?"

"The cause of this partial disappearance of the green coloring has no connection with the hybrid-character of the plants, as it likewise occurs in the parental variety," explained Mendel, becoming a bit frustrated. Didn't they get it? None of these trivial details mattered, they were all peripheral to the central argument and the nature of the results.

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Chapter Twelve

Postponement

At this point, a new voice was heard. From the back of the room a monk rose to his feet and came to Mendel's defense.

"Brother Gregory," he said firmly, "Is not this peculiarity confined to the individual and is not inherited by the offspring?"

All necks turned to view the speaker. They saw a man of about Mendel's age, but shorter and thinner. On top of a triangular head his thin gray hair was parted perfectly down the middle and combed flat to both sides. Brother Joseph Lindenthal was normally a quiet man who was perfectly happy helping Mendel with his plants and experiments. Only once in his life had he defied his Abbot, and on that occasion he had been under the influence of Brother Matthew.

Mendel seized on the reprieve, "Ahh, yes, thank you Brother Joseph, in luxuriant plants this appearance was frequently noted. Seeds which are damaged by insects during their development often vary in color and form."

"But it does not influence the experienced experimenter, does it?" insisted Brother Joseph, determined to end the humiliation of his friend and co-experimenter.

"Indeed not," said Mendel, "with a little practice in sorting, errors are easily avoided. It is almost superfluous to mention that the pods must remain on the plants until they are thoroughly ripened and have become dried, since it is only then that the shape and color of the seed are fully developed."

But the damage had been done and Brother Timothy was not going to let Mendel off that lightly. "Herr Grunewald," Brother Timothy turned to the German textile manufacturer, "am I not right in thinking that the numbers of plants reported in experiments one and two are too small to have statistical significance?" This question woke up the distinguished member, who had been showing more interest in his cigar than in the latter part of the paper.

"Hummmp, indeed yes," he replied, "the numbers, yes, the numbers. I warned you Brother Gregory." He wagged his gloved finger at the unfortunate Monk. "You ignore the numbers at your peril. How can you determine anything of significance from 43 peas?" He looked around the audience for confirmation. About half the faces looking back at him knew enough about mathematics and the importance of statistics to nod in agreement. Mendel's numbers in experiments one and two had been far too small to allow for serious deductions. Other faces showed doubt. They belonged to the naturalists, like Napp, who were more interested in the biological consequences of Mendel's discoveries and were increasingly dismayed that the discussion was bogging down in the arcane world of fractions and ratios. Neither group, however, seemed pleased at the current position of Mendel's paper and his results.

Sensing the mood of the members, Vice President Theimer jumped to his feet and faced the audience. "Yes, indeed, Brother Gregory has given us a lot to think about this evening." He rubbed his hands together, "I have a suggestion. Today is February 8th, there is no speaker scheduled for our meeting on March 8th, why don't we ask Brother Gregory to return on that date, with all his data, and we will hear his reply to Brother Timothy and Herr Grunewald?" There was a murmur of agreement around the room, accompanied by louder sounds of agreement from Brother Matthew and teacher Makytta. It was cold and most of the audience just wanted to go home. For the rest, they needed time to think about what Mendel had said and what it all meant. Perhaps next month the monk would clarify some of the issues raised by Brother Timothy. It was a good solution.

"Good, then we are adjourned for this evening," said Theimer and began to clap his hands in reward of the speaker. A few others joined in, but their applause was almost drowned out by the scraping of chairs as stiff listeners finally got to their feet. Several members of the audience came forward to speak to Mendel. Their traditional phrases of gentle congratulation were noticeably weak. Brother Matthew, Thomas Makytta and Brother Joseph clustered round him and their praise was clear and most sincere. Even Grunewald made a move to approach Mendel, but his progress was blocked by Brother Timothy who intercepted him and began to talk about Monastery business.

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Chapter Thirteen

Until Next Time

"Well done, Brother Gregory," said Brother Matthew over enthusiastically, "a good presentation. I particularly liked the part where you described how the pea plants were grown." Ruefully, Mendel smiled back at his friend.

"Thank you Brother Matthew, it is kind of you," he said softly, "but I feel that your opinion is not shared by many others." He looked around the room where small groups of men were huddled in conversation that he was sure had nothing to do with his talk. Often, after a controversial presentation, members of the audience would debate one point or another for several hours, moving the argument to the local coffee shop when they were ejected from the Realschule. But not tonight. Most of the members were now talking politics or business, not plant hybridization.

Breaking off from one such group, Abbot Napp approached the four lonely figures. Holding out his hand to Mendel, who took it firmly, he said, "Well done Brother Gregory, you spoke clearly and your voice carried well. I heard every word." He drew Mendel closer to him and put an arm around his shoulders. "But a word of advice. Next time have your data and your conclusions more firmly drawn. Do not hesitate in your presentation and be prepared to defend even the most obvious of points." Mendel agreed silently.

"Brother Timothy is ambitious," went on Napp, "but he is a good scientist, and you should listen to him." The Abbot felt obliged to apologize for his protégé's behavior. "In science, as in life, there are many different types of players. Some, like your friends here," and he acknowledged Bothers Matthew and Joseph, "will agree with you no matter what you say. And some," here he nodded in the direction of Brother Timothy, "will attack you just because your success in some way lessens them." He paused to see if Mendel was following his advice.

"To them, your data, correctly interpreted, is not just a discovery or an advancement of God's truth, it is a minor victory for you, and a loss for them in a battle they fight every day to be perceived as either the first or the best." Mendel looked puzzled at these last remarks, so Napp tried to make his point more clearly. "Those who succeed, at least think they have succeeded in science, have very large egos. Few are good scientists. Large egos need constant feeding and the nourishment they need the most is praise and the perception of power or authority." Once again the humble monk was having difficulty in following his Abbot.

Napp shook his head. It would take more than one lesson to educate this gentle man who still believed that honesty and truth were the two most important virtues in science. Perhaps he would get his second lesson at the next presentation in March, but Napp was determined to make sure he was better prepared the next time.

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Afterword

This story is fiction; but scientific fiction based on fact. Johann "Gregor" Mendel, Thomas Makytta, Mateous Klacel (Brother Matthew), Joseph Lindenthal, C. Romer and Abbot Cyril Napp were all real people who lived when and where this story places them. Herr Grunewald is fictional, but typical of a new kind of industrialist who was becoming more and more common in the 19th century, especially in England.

Brother Timothy is the interesting invention. Mendel historians will recognize a lot of similarities between my 'Brother Timothy' and a real monk who was a contemporary of Mendel, however this character is also fictional

I have based this story, and the ones to come, as much as possible on the known facts about Gregor Mendel, who did indeed present his research to the Brno Society of Natural Sciences In February and March of 1865, almost without any effect or without leaving any lasting impression.

Science, and the people who perform these arts, are rarely presented accurately in the popular media, i.e. newspapers, television and, of course, movies and TV dramas. This is a great pity as these crude stereotypes badly warp our perceptions of the men and women who carry out research and distorts the very nature of this critical human process. (I don't think I have ever seen a movie that accurately shows is audience how real science is performed!). Modern human culture and society are now totally dependent on the fruits of scientific research (look at the scientific technology behind the device you are using to read this!!), yet people today know more about Superman than they do about Jonas Salk, Isaac Newton or Gregor Mendel. This is a great pity. In writing these stories about "Brother Gregory" therefore, I have tried to combine scientific accuracy, and a fair presentation of the nature of science, with narrative tales that can compete with popular fiction. I hope you agree.

In the next Brother Gregory story Herr Otto Grunewald delivers his cigars and some surprises. Of course, Brother Timothy also plays an active role.

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Footnotes

Artificial Fertilization

Mendel's experiments were based on the concept that each parent in a genetic cross contributed an equivalent 'transmission element' to the offspring. To test this idea Mendel crossed plants exhibiting one form of a character, with plants exhibiting the other form, and repeated this experiment for each of the seven characteristics he felt was unique enough to be unambiguous.

He probably guessed that the 'element' for seed color came in (at least) two forms; yellow and green, or flower color; white and purple. Plants showing one of these forms contained two identical 'elements' (both purple flower 'elements', for example), but only passed one of these two 'elements' onto their offspring during fertilization.

So he tested this idea by artificially fertilizing one form of a plant (purple flowers) using 'elements' from a plant showing the alternate form (white flowers). This is was carried out by brushing the pollen from one plant onto the stigma of the other. In this way the male 'element' from the pollen eventually joins with the female 'element' in the eggs. But what if the 'male element' was not equivalent to the 'female element'?

To test whether his results depended on which plant was donating the pollen (or egg), Mendel always carried out each experiment in two ways, something called a "reciprocal cross". Using the same plants and the same forms of each trait, one plant first acted as pollen donor and then, in the second "reciprocal" experiment, as an egg donor. Note: Mendel called the egg donors "seed bearers".

Every summer, for several years, Mendel would start his experiments. He had two options. First, he did nothing and let the Pisum plants self-fertilize. The flower structure is such in this species that pollen from the stamens will fall directly onto the pistil. All the reproductive organs of the flower being inside the protective covering of the keel. Artificial fertilizations were performed by opening the keel, and using a small, delicate paint brush to bring the tiny pollen grains from one plant to the stigma of another.

Then he waited for the pea pods to grow so he could collect the seeds, store them over the winter, plant them the next spring, and wait for the results. He must have been very patient!

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Differentiating characters

Mendel realized that the plants he was breeding contained two elements, which we now call genes. These genes can be damaged by normal and artificial mutagenesis to produce variants which in turn change the appearance of the plant or some part of the plant.

If we represent the gene for normal flower color using a letter "R", a "pure breeding" plant that always produced offspring with normal flowers would contain two of these genes, thus RR.

Similarly, if we represent a damaged or mutant gene using the letter "r", a plant with two of these genes, rr will show the altered (mutant) flower color.

This was Mendel's starting material. Using plants like these he began his "hybridization" experiments to see how these genes would be transmitted into the hybrids and beyond. From the patterns of inheritance he observed, he was able to deduce not only what genes the plants carried, but the "laws" governing their transmittal.

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The Civil War

While Mendel was growing his peas, a continent and an ocean away in the United States the American Civil War was reaching a state of crisis.

Northern victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863 had been a turning point in the war.

Lincoln made Grant commander-in-chief of all Union forces and in May 1864 Grant advanced deep into Virginia. At the three-day Battle of the Wilderness armies of the North and South clashed with heavy losses on both sides. Grant refused to retreat. Instead, he attempted to outflank Lee, and the battle enter days of bloody trench warfare.

In the West General William T. Sherman invaded Georgia, outmaneuvering several smaller Confederate armies. Atlanta was occupied and Sherman then marched to the Atlantic coast, destroying railroads, factories, warehouses and everything else in his path. His army looted the countryside for food.

In February 1865, as Mendel was giving his talk in Brno, Sherman was marching northward, and by the time Mendel had finished speaking Sherman had surrounded Charleston, South Carolina. This was of particular significance since this was where the first shots of the Civil War had been fired. Sherman was determined to destroy the morale of the South and did so with brutal efficiency.

Meanwhile, Grant was laying siege to Petersburg, Virginia, and in March 1865 (as Mendel was giving the second part of his talk), Lee abandoned both Petersburg and Richmond, the Confederate capital. He attempted to retreat south, but he had left it too late. On April 9, 1865, surrounded by huge Union armies, the Confederate General surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. Some scattered fighting continued elsewhere but essentially the Civil War was over.

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Controls

Mendel's work and the results he reports are unique and special for many reasons, including the obvious one that he was the first to unambiguously demonstrate the 'particulate' nature of the 'transmission elements'. But Mendel was ahead of his time in another way. Other botanists had carried out genetic crosses, but none of them had performed any control experiments. Mendel's use of control experiments was original. There was no precedent for this in any of the scientific literature he would have read, and none of his mentors apparently thought it important to control for other possible complicating factors.

The significance of a parallel set of experiments is clear from Mendel's work. For example, although his audience probably went to sleep as he tried to explain it, his use of the indoor results (carried out in a greenhouse) to dismiss certain outdoor results made it possible to attribute anomalous behavior to the work of beetles (which also enjoy a good meal of pollen). He knew all about the risk of false fertilizations in which the pollen donor is not known, and went to considerable extra lengths (and effort) to eliminate, or at least account for, any such false fertilizations. Without these controls, Mendel would have been at a loss to explain the behavior of his 'elements'.

Mendel, therefore, used controls not simply to support his good results, he also used them to discount and deflect any criticism of poor or unexpected results.

Author's note: I am a fan of Mendel, his work, his life and his discoveries, but nobody is perfect, Mendel included. As I have noted elsewhere, Mendel probably lost his audience in the Realshule and later when he wrote up his results as a paper, by giving huge amounts of gardening detail, something that even the most 'fanatic-for-detail' might consider unnecessary in a scientific paper.

But there are also a few other questionable aspects to Mendel. He is very honest about the fact that he simply threw away plants he considered gave him poor or unexplainable results. This may be a common practice, even today, but it is hardly admirable, except for its honesty (most modern scientists would never even admit to this practice!).

Even more questionable is his choice of starting material for his work. His paper reports the results he obtained from crosses involving seven characters. He never explains how or why he came to choose exactly those seven characters and why he abandoned the rest. With his usual honesty he lists fifteen possible characters, and then ignores more than half of them. A charitable explanation would be that he never had time to carry out all the experiments he wanted, but ...

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Fertilization

Fertilization takes place in angiosperm plants when the haploid male nucleus of the male gamete fuses with the nucleus of the female haploid gamete. Their journeys to this union can sometimes be very long.

It starts with reproductive cells produced in the male and female sex organs of the flower. Meiosis divides up the chromosomes, DNA and the genes they carry into separate, haploid packages. This very special type of cell division only occurs in sex cells and only to produce gametes.

The outcome is two fold; each gamete only has half the genetic material found in the diploid parental cell, and the separation of chromosomes is independent of one another, so the mixtures of chromosomes is random. Male and female gametes, therefore are genetically different not only from the parental cell, but also from each other. In this way the genetic diversity is increased at each meiosis.

Male gametes are made in large numbers and packaged into well protected traveling cases; pollen. Female gametes go through an elaborate development in which triploid material is formed which will eventually nourish the seed. But eventually several well stocked eggs are produced which line up in the ovary awaiting the arrival of the male gametes to fertilize them.

Now begins a remarkable journey. Pollen grains are scattered from the anthers onto some carrier. In some plants, this is just the wind, but in many other plants the carrier is an insect, beetle, bird, mouse or moth. Stuck to the back of a bee, pollen moves from one flower to another. As the carrier feeds off the next flower the pollen is shed into the area of the ovary and can be picked up by the sticky stigma.

Triggered by its arrival, the pollen grain puts out a long tube which dissolves its way along and through the style, eventually entering the ovary and making contact with one of the egg cells. Back in the pollen grain the haploid nucleus, which is all that is left of the male gamete, begins the last stage of its journey. It moves down the tube and into the egg cell. Finally the two haploid nuclei fuse and the next generation has begun.

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Flowers and Fertilization

Flowers are the reproductive structures of angiosperm plants. They house the male and female reproductive organs and are the site where fertilization takes place. After fertilization the seeds start to develop inside the flower, which usually withers away. The flower is eventually replaced by the fruit (if the plant has one).

Inside the protective petals (called the keel in this case) of Mendel's flowers, he found the male and female organs. The female structure consists of an ovary which holds a row of eggs. After fertilization these become the typical peas seeds. A short style, a solid tube, connects to the stigma which collects the pollen.

The male parts of the flower are long, thin filaments that hold at their tip, anthers where the male pollen grains are produced.

In many flowering plants, insects and other carriers, arrive at the flowers attracted by the color and the promise of nectar. They push their way into the flower and pick up the pollen on the backs or tongues. They then travel to other flowers and inadvertently place the male pollen onto the stigmas of female parts.

In this way male sex gametes (in the pollen grains) are brought close to the female sex gametes (in the egg cells). A tube grows out of the pollen grain, down and through the style and into the ovary. At the right moment a haploid male gamete moves down the tube and enters one of the haploid egg cells. Fertilization has taken place. The genetic material carried by the gametes fuses and the seed starts to develop.

In Mendel's peas both the male and female parts are protected and covered by a special set of petals. This keel hides the anthers and ovaries, so normally these flowers are self-fertilizing. Mendel, in his experiments, would artificially move pollen from the flowers of one plant onto the styles of ovaries of another plant. This is the first step in a genetic cross.

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'Fluids' and 'Blending'

In Mendel's time, the prevalent explanation for inheritance was dominated by two ideas; offspring were a "blend" of two "fluids" donated by their parents and that the male parent's donation was more important than the female's donation to the offspring.

Blending inheritance was an old idea. It was common then, and is still common today, to talk of a person being "half Italian" or being "part Polish", and the metaphors used as a mechanism to explain inheritance drew more on the idea of "blending" two cans of paint than mixing gene combinations. Mix a can of red paint with a can of white paint, and the result is a pink color. Most scientists felt that the offspring was just such a "blend" of controlling "fluids" given by the parents.

Mendel made an important contribution to genetics when he confronted this issue head on and stressed that in his experiments there was a complete dominance of one form (at least most of the time). A theory that included the idea of "blending" could not explain his findings.

Although not unique, Mendel's work also started the debunking of another theory of inheritance; that the male parent's contribution was most important. Mendel insisted from the beginning that the contribution from the "pollen parent" was no more (or no less) important in influencing the form of the hybrid than the contribution by the female parent. This idea of "equal contribution" not common either in contemporary studies of inheritance.

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Inspiration

It is always difficult to know where a good idea comes from. In Mendel's case it is particularly difficult as, like Darwin, he presents it in almost complete form, a concept that is totally new and totally revolutionary. Where did this idea begin?

In his scientific paper Mendel writes that part of the motivation for his work may have come from the observation that hybridization in plants was remarkably predictable. The names he mentions in his talk; Joseph Gottlieb Kolreuter (1733-1806), Carl Friedrich von Gartner (1772-1850), Max Ernst Wichura (1817-1866), and others, were botanists who investigated plant hybrids. He seems very familiar with their work.

He also seems very familiar with the limitations of this work. He notes, that no one yet has been able to predict the form that hybrids will take, even if you know the forms of the parents. No one should be surprised by this, he says, since the relevant experiments are difficult. They require a great amount of time to carry out, and the experiments must be carefully worked out in order to be successful.

Mendel's written work makes it clear that he was motivated to find a law that governed the production of hybrid forms. But this is not enough. What gave him the idea of two "elementes" (what we would call genes today)? Maybe we will never know, but there are tantalizing hints in some of the research data he presented. (See later)

The introduction to his paper, however, makes it clear that the law he wanted to find had to be quantitative as well as qualitative; numbers, as the fictional Grunewald would say, are critical. Mendel wanted to be able to predict not just the kinds of hybrids that would appear in a genetic cross but also their "statistical relations".

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It Works!

In science as in life, success is important. In his talk, Mendel was reporting to the Society his successful experiments in plant hybridization and what he thought he had discovered. What he did not report, however is almost as interesting as what he did say.

For example, he told his audience the exact number of varieties he procured from the seedsman, and the exact details of how to perform an artificial fertilization. What he does not tell, however, is the reason why he chose only 22 of the varieties he had been given. Any modern scientist could provide the answer to this question; the seeds that he reported on gave results that "worked".

Over and over again in the scientific literature, the only experiments that are reported are those that produced results. It is very rare (almost never) that non-productive experiments are presented. In some ways this is understandable. Most experiments do not produce reliable results for a variety of reasons; not all the variables were controlled, the wrong conditions were chosen, or simply the hypothesis was wrong. If all non-productive results were reported the literature would be swamped.

But the creative side of the scientific mind is as interesting as the conclusions that eventually make it into the literature and history. It would be fascinating to learn where Mendel got the idea for his experiments. Many historians of science consider that Mendel already had an idea of the answer, before he started asking the question, or doing the hybridizations. There is nothing wrong with this, but it does explain his choice of starting material; it gave the results he wanted to see.

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Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck, who, during his life, was also known as Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince von Bismarck, Count von Bismarck-Schšnhausen, Duke von Lauenburg, was one of those critical, larger than life, historic persons who have changed the course of history. He was also a Prussian statesman.

It was largely by his efforts that a diverse group of middle European states became united in 1871. Bismarck founded the first (and last) German Empire and served as its first chancellor for 19 years.

His greatest work established, he cleverly and skillfully wove his way through the labyrinth of 19th century policies in foreign affairs, mostly to the advantage of Germany. It is to his credit that, after making war on almost every small and weak state in Europe he also succeeding in preserving the peace for about two decades.

In the time of Mendel, Bismarck was very active in foreign policy. He hoped, like many leaders before and since, that success abroad would weaken his domestic enemies at home. He found the perfect opportunity bullying a small country.

Since 1848, trouble had been brewing between the Germans living in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and their nominal master, the Danes. At this time, both duchies were in union with Denmark, but the majority of the Schleswig population were of German stock, and Holstein was a member of the German Confederation.

Bismarck got his chance to make trouble when the Danish king acted rashly, and he struck swiftly. He saw to it that Prussia and Austria spoke out for the interests of the German citizens of these duchies, and launched a quick, successful, war against the unfortunate and ill prepared country of Denmark.

The fate of Schleswig and Holstein was now in the hands of Bismarck and the Austrians, who promptly fell to haggling over the spoils. At the time of our story, Mendel would have know about the growing stress between the "Iron Chancellor" and his own leaders of the Austrian Empire. In the very year that he gave his talk on Plant Hybridization, the Convention of Gastein (signed on Aug. 20, 1865) provided for Schleswig to be administered by Prussia and Holstein by Austria.

But back in Germany Liberals in the government were still unhappy at Bismarck and by Prussian military prowess and once again handed Bismark and the Emperor a serious defeat when the army bill came up for a vote in January 1865.

Tensions between Germany and Austria continued to rise. Bismarck repeatedly told the Austrians that they would be wise not to get him angry and to yield dominance in everything to Germany. His warning and his words fell on deaf ears. So, after making sure that Russia would not stab him in the back, and after making temporary friends with Italy, he started stirring up conflict with the Austrians.

Using Hungarian nationalism against Austria as an excuse, on June 9, 1866, Prussian troops invaded Holstein, and a few days later Austria. Within six weeks Prussia had inflicted a major defeat on the Austrians at Koniggratz (Sadowa), and Mendel had a new master.

Bismarck craftily counseled moderation so Austria would not be humiliated, and he urged a quick cessation of hostilities. In this way he prevented other powers from intervening. The rest of Europe was stunned. Overnight the man of Iron and his Prussian military machine had transformed the essential distribution of power in central

Europe. Austria, once a major power, was now a secondary player.

Mendel was forgotten.

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Transmission mechanism: the Gene

A gene is a length of DNA that codes for a single polypeptide chain.

This simple definition of the Mendelian "transmission element" was not known or understood until the 1950's and 1960's. Although chromosomes had been discovered much earlier, and it was strongly suspected that they carried the units of heredity, the exact chemical nature of the gene remained a mystery for over 60 years.

Oswald Avery made a critical breakthrough in the search for the chemical nature of the gene in 1944. In a series of carefully controlled experiments, Avery and his co-workers at the Rockefeller Institute, were able to show that a molecule of DNA was able to "transform" a harmless Pneumococcus. bacterium into one which was lethal to mice. DNA-digesting enzymes destroyed the "transforming principle", whereas enzymes that only digested protein had no effect. DNA carried the "transmission element".

Ironically, the substance called DNA had been discovered by a German chemist, Friedrich Miescher, in 1869, only four years after Mendel gave his seminars, but few scientists considered it an interesting molecule. It was boringly simple with only three different components; phosphate groups, five carbon sugars and nitrogen containing bases (purines and pyrimidines). This was discovered by P.A. Levine in the 1920's.

With Avery's work, and even more exciting work on bacterial viruses by Hershey and Chase in 1952, DNA suddenly became important, and the race was on to determine its structure. This race was won in 1953 when two young scientists, working at Cambridge University, published a likely structure of the DNA molecule. These were James Watson, then a postdoctoral student and an English scientist Francis Crick.

Using models, and other people's data, they hit on the breakthrough idea that DNA consisted of two chains of nucleotides held together by phosphate groups and twisted around each other in a double spiral they termed a double helix. The nitrogenous bases pointed into the center of this double spiral and paired up with each other in a fixed manner; adenine with thymine and guanine with cytosine.

Although Watson and Crick's model of DNA immediately suggested a mechanism for its own replication (and hence how DNA could act as the molecule of heredity), it took a lot longer to workout the details of how the DNA carries the information that produced the traits seen in Mendel's peas.

But the gene was now firmly located on the DNA molecule, which in turn was the central core of the chromosome. Mendel would have understood.

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Pisum sativum

Mendel's green pea (Pisum sativum), is also called the garden pea or English pea. It was a good choice for experiments in genetics for several reasons. Peas can be planted early in the spring, often while the ground it still cold from the winter. They grow and fruit quickly and are among the earliest vegetables to be picked each year. The monks in Mendel's monastery would have really appreciated his crops as peas are best if eaten almost immediately. Like corn, peas lose their sweet flavor very rapidly.

One of the distinct characteristics about peas, that Mendel used, is that peas can be classified as either smooth or wrinkled. This depends on the way their seeds look when dried. Every gardener knows that wrinkled varieties of peas are sweeter than smooth ones, and only wrinkled varieties were eaten in Mendel's monastery.

As early as possible each spring Mendel would rush into his experimental garden and plant the seeds he had collected the previous year. The length of time he would have to wait before getting his results would vary for each variety. From the time his seeds were sown in the Monastery soil, until the plants were ready to be harvested depended on the kind on plant. Tall-growing types (one of his characteristics) are the 4- to 5-foot high and take 74 days; whereat the shorter types and two 2 1/2-foot and only take 67 days. Dwarf types (another characteristic) are about 15-inches at maturity and only take 64 days. The difference in maturation times must have given him a certain amount of trouble.

Modern growers, less interested in genetics and more interested in the results have three varieties of edible-pod peas to choose from. They are the 2- to 2 1/2-foot Dwarf Gray Sugar, (65 days); and the 41/2-foot Mammoth Melting Sugar, (74 days); and my personal favorite. the 6-foot Sugar Snap peas, 70 days.

If you want to grow Mendel's peas in your garden, the following guideline should help. Modern pea varieties grow best in soil with a pH of 6.0 to 7.5. Prepare the soil by digging down about 8 inches into the soil leaving a flat-bottomed trench about 10 inches wide and 2 inches deep. Put a small amount of low-nitrogen fertilizer at the bottom of each trench (about 2 ounces for every 10 feet of row), and rake it into the soil.

Note: low-nitrogen fertilizer is used because peas, like other legumes, form a partnership with soil bacteria to take nitrogen from the air and fix it into usable fertilizer.

Place your seeds at about 2 inch intervals along the trench and then rake good soil over the top. In cool climates cover with mulch until the seeds start to germinate. Once the shoots begin to appear, protect the delicate plants and later provide them with canes or nets up which they can climb. Stand back, eat, and enjoy.

Think of Mendel.

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Brno

Brno is the capital of Jihomoravsk kraj (region), in the southeastern part of the Czech Republic. It is often considered the capital of Moravia. Germans, like the fictional Grunewald in our story, began to move into the region as early as the 13th century. Their industry and hard work stimulated the growth of the region and Brno grew in importance until it became an incorporated city in 1243.

During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-45), Brno was invaded and was occupied by the French in 1805. Napoleon led his revolutionary French armies into battle against the combined Austrian and Russian armies and fought was of his most famous battles at Slavkov (which we know as Austerlitz), a place 7 miles southeast of Brno. In Mendel's time there were still old soldiers alive that could remember this battle.

During the height of the Austro-Hungarian empire Spilberk castle in Brno was turned into a political prison and military hospital. A place of unsavory reputation which the poet Silvio Pellico exposed in his book Le mie prigioni ("My Prisons"). He wrote of the horrors he found in the Spilberk dungeons, where Carbonari Italian patriots were imprisoned by the Austrians.

Despite many wars over the centuries, many fine old buildings have survived, including the churches of St. Thomas and St. James and the Gothic church in Mendel's Augustinian monastery.

Mendel would have walked along the narrow streets of the old town that, even today, are enclosed by a belt of open boulevards. A modern tourist, however, can expect to see large, new housing projects where Mendel would have seen fields.

Until World War II Grunewald's descendants were the predominant inhabitants of Brno and the surrounding regions. Mendel gave his talk in German. However, today most of the people walking Brno's streets are mainly Czech. Education is still important in Mendel's town. Brno is the home of Masaryk University, (founded in 1919).

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Transmitting Element

Mendel never knew the nature of his "transmitting element". He suspected that this "elemente" was particulate in nature (more like a pebble than a liquid), but he could not even speculate on its chemical nature.

Twenty years after Mendel's research, and long after everyone had forgotten his seminar in Brno, a few biologists began to turn their rapidly improving light microscopes on the physical structure of living organisms. Their attention was drawn to the strange new world of cells. Among the properties of cells they discovered was the process of cell division and cell reproduction. Watching cells divide was not easy. Seeing inside these tiny structures required new techniques of sample preparation and the staining of the almost invisible contents with special colored dyes. But slowly a visual picture emerged that showed the various stages cells go through as one cell divides into two new cells.

One fact quickly became clear; the cytoplasm and its contents were distributed randomly between the two new daughter cells, whereas the contents of the cell nucleus were elaborately and carefully divided equally between the two offspring. These scientists realized that something in the nucleus was a prime candidate for the "element" that governed and controlled inheritance.

In 1888 staining dyes were applied to dividing cells and showed tiny "threads" of material forming in the nucleus. These "threads" were passed to the daughter cells during cell division and promptly became the candidates for the transmitting element. Because they only became visible after staining with colored dyes, they were called "colored bodies", or chromosomes (see below).

About this time, the cellular nature of the process of fertilization was also being observed through the microscope. Once again cells were involved. The gametes, one male, one female, were highly specialized cells; sperm and eggs. As they were formed, it could be shown that the nucleus and its chromosomal contents were carefully packaged and preserved. At fertilization, a mixture of the chromosomes from both types of cells became the contents of the newly formed zygote that eventually grew into a new organism.

German biologist Theodore Boveri stated that the development of a new individual from a fertilized egg cell was "dependent upon a particular combination of chromosomes ...". His work was the first definitive evidence that chromosomes carried Mendel's "elements". By 1887 another German biologist, August Weismann, was able to speculate that a special kind of cell division, called meiosis, was responsible for reducing the chromosome content of gametes into half of the original cellular number. He called this "reduction division". Slowly the mechanism for inheritance was being elucidated.

Chromosomes

Chromosomes are long threads of material called chromatin. This material is composed of a central core of DNA (making up about 40% of the chromosome), and packaging proteins (about 60%). Depending on the circumstances, some RNA can also be associated with these structures, particularly when they are active in directing protein synthesis.

The central DNA molecule in a typical human chromosome contains about half a billion nucleotides, and, if stretched out to its full length, would be about 2 inches (5 centimeters) end to end. Obviously, in a cell, this DNA has to be coiled and packaged to allow it all to fit inside the nucleus.

Every 200 nucleotides along its length, the thread of DNA is twisted around a complex of eight proteins called histones. This forms a "bead" of material called a nucleosome. Histone proteins carry a net positive electrical charge, and these positive charges neutralize the concentration of negative charges on the phosphate groups of the DNA molecule.

Nucleosomes are further packages into tighter and tighter coils becoming more and more concentrated and highly condensed. Some of this heterochromatin is never uncoiled and the DNA it contains is never used, but the rest, the euchromatin is tightly packaged during cell division, but is present in the nucleus in a much more open form during the rest of the cell cycle.

Chromosomes differ from each other a lot. Some are tiny, some are huge, some have the constricting centromere close to one end, others have their centromere in the middle. Organisms also vary in the number and type of chromosomes they carry.

Mosquito - 6 chromosomes

Housefly - 12 chromosomes

Garden Pea - 14 chromosomes

Tobacco - 48 chromosomes

Toad - 22 chromosomes

Vampire bat - 28 chromosomes

Human - 46 chromosomes

Cow - 60 chromosomes

Duck - 80 chromosomes

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One at a time

Throughout his talk (and his later paper) Mendel discusses his results one character at a time (round peas / wrinkled peas). The concept of studying a single character in this way is so common in genetics and molecular biology today, we could be forgiven for passing over this aspect of his work without comment. This would be a mistake.

A simple calculation shows that, if Mendel had only planted pea plants that differed in one character at a time, he would have needed a plot of land the size of Brno to grow all the plants he would have needed to study! The number of plants needed for this kind of approach would be impossibly large.

Obviously Mendel used pea plants that showed all seven characters (or more) in every generation. But, when it came time to analyze his results he does so as if he is looking at only one characteristic on each plant. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly how many plants Mendel used, but it is unlikely he studied plants with only one character. It is much more likely that Mendel made yet another breakthrough in the study of genetics by examining single characteristics, or small parts of plants rather than the whole plant at once.

Phenotypes of even the simplest organisms on earth are extremely complicated. It is unlikely that any progress could have been made in the discovery of the mechanism of inheritance without this simple but critical contribution by Mendel. Breaking down the complex phenotype into manageable "phenotypic traits" is taken for granted today, but without Mendel this idea would have taken longer to arrive.

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Versuche uber Pflanzenhybriden

One important source of historical fact used in creating this story is a scientific paper written by Mendel himself which he published in the 1866 issue of the Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins, the Proceedings of the Natural History Society in Brno. As this story tells, Mendel's published paper began as two lectures, one given on February 8 and the second on March 8, 1865, to the Natural History Society of Brno.

Mendel was an enthusiastic teacher (if technically unqualified) who had a real interest in inspiring others to learn and experiment. One of the reasons Mendel gave these lectures, he said, was to try and inspire other botanists to repeat and duplicate his results. In this goal, he was doomed to disappointment, something he realized before his death. Correspondence with a colleague Carl von Nageli (a Professor of Botany at the University in Munich) in 1867, hints at his frustration; "as far as I know," he said, "no one undertook to repeat the experiments."

One reason for the almost total lack of response to the important discoveries in Mendel's paper was the problems of scientific communication in Mendel's day. There was no internet, and all published proceedings had to be printed and mailed to subscribers.

It is known that 115 copies of the Proceedings of the Natural History Society in Brno were sent out in 1866. One even found its way into the library of Charles Darwin. However, the great scientist did not even read it. When Darwin died, his books and papers were examined and the unlucky Mendel's paper was intact. The relevant pages of the Proceedings were uncut! (Unlike modern books, the readers had to cut the pages open for themselves). Darwin was not unique. Most of the other recipients of Mendel's journal seem to have been unimpressed and uninfluenced by the paper.

If you want to read Mendel's own words, a version of the original paper is reprinted in the Journal of Heredity (vol. 42, #1, 1951) and corrected by Blumberg using the copy of Mendel's manuscript reproduced in Gedda [1956].

Or you could just keep reading this continuing story.

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Choosing the right material

One of the reasons why Mendel's work was so successful was his choice of starting material. He realized that his experimental plants must meet special criteria before he could get repeatable results, and before his data could be properly interpreted.

Of great importance was what he called "characteristics". These were highly visible, reproducible and unambiguous differences between one plant and another. It was also important that this "characteristic" should be seen in every generation of the plants he was using. Flower color is a good example of such a characteristic, but only if every plant in every generation bears flowers with a distinct and unambiguous color.

For example, most people would agree that a bright red flower is distinct and different from a yellow flower. Such a characteristic allows for precise, "objective" measurement; there is no disagreement which flower is red and which flower is yellow.

With other characteristics, however, Mendel was aware he was in a gray area. When using the term "long" to describe the stem of a plant, this would only be a "good" characteristic if there was no disagreement about whether a particular stem is long or short. Not always an easy thing on which to agree. Mendel, therefore chose his characteristics with care.

The plants he used must allow for controlled breeding. It was critical that he knew, for any given hybrid, which parent supplied the egg and which the pollen. Mendel solved this problem by his choice of the pea plant. Like many other plants, the flowers of the pea possess both male and female reproductive organs, which, under normal circumstances, will self-fertilize. To Mendel, however, the special advantage with Pisum was that the keel (a part of the flower) covers the reproductive organs. Unless the flower is damaged, there is no possibility of different pollen coming from other flowers and messing up his results.

He could be certain about the origin of both the pollen and egg that produced his hybrids.

Finally, the plants he used were constantly fertile. All the hybrids that came from every cross were all as fertile as their parents. No experiment ever came to a crashing halt because the offspring of a cross was infertile and could not be used again.

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The 3:1 Ratio

At the heart of Mendel's many experiments were two critical results.

When he crossed two plants that differed in one characteristic (e.g. one plant had purple flowers and the other plant had white flowers) all the plants that grew from these seeds (the F1 or first filial, generation) showed a single characteristic (purple flowers in this case). These were the 'hybrids' that he talked about during the early part of his presentation.

Using a term that was already used in the botanical community, he called this trait the dominant form, and the alternative form, the one that had vanished in the F1 offspring, he called the recessive form. For each of the seven traits he reported, each showed a dominant and recessive form. These were;

Flower color : purple - white

Seed color : yellow - green

Seed shape : round - wrinkled

Pod color : green - yellow

Pod shape : round - constricted

Flower position : axial - top

Plant height : tall - dwarf

After these plants had grown to maturity Mendel allowed them to self-pollinate and once again collected the seeds, which he planted the next spring and grew into the F2 or second filial generation.

These F2 plants showed both characteristics; some had, for example, purple flowers and some had white flowers. The same was true for all the characteristics he was studying. But this was where Mendel made a very significant discovery. When he counted up the F2 plants he found that;

Trait - Dominant Form to Recessive Form - -Ratio-

Flower color - 705 to 224 - - 3.15 : 1

Seed color - 6022 to 2001 - - 3.01 : 1

Seed shape - 5474 to 1850 - - 2.96 : 1

Pod color - 428 to 152 - - 2.82 : 1

Pod shape - 882 to 299 - - 2.95 : 1

Flower position - 651 to 207 - - 3.14 : 1

Plant height - 787 to 227 - - 2.84 : 1

No matter what the actual raw numbers he counted, when he divided the number of dominant forms by the number recessive forms, the ratio always came out very close to 3 : 1. Three-quarters of the F2 offspring always showed the dominant trait, and one quarter always showed the recessive trait.

How was he going to explain these results?

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The Species Problem

Mendel was not and is not the only biologist who had, and has, problems with species. Classification of organisms into groups is an inexact science that is constantly changing and always being revised. There is no completely unambiguous classification scheme.

In this story Mendel is challenged on one of the weaker parts of his paper; to what species do his plants belong? In the story he gets out of trouble by giving a fairly straightforward answer, but his vague claim about the ill-defined boundaries between species and varieties is broadly unsatisfactory.

These are still difficult questions today, but in Mendel's time, and for quite some time afterwards, there was an additional complication in that botanists used different criteria for the classification of species (see below) to those used by animal biologists. The definitions of species used by animal biologists frequently used criteria based on two sexes and bisexual reproduction. These were difficult criteria for Mendel to use or to apply to plants like his peas. Thus, Mendel's comment, that two plants can be considered the same species if everyone thinks that they are.

A scientist making such a comment in a modern presentation would not escape unscarred, but it represents a view that plant biology was stuck with for a long time.

Mendel certainly seemed sensitive to the arbitrary nature of species definitions. His mental framework for his thinking and experimentation seem to be based more on physics than botany. Early in his talk he commented on the failure of previous studies to come up with a law for hybrid production. He was clearly disturbed by the lack of clear basic conditions in which and around which these laws could be unambiguously formulated.

Brother Timothy was not the only person to have pointed out the weakness of unsure starting conditions before carrying out important experiments.

Classification, or - Putting things into groups.

In the seventeenth century naturalists began trying to name living organisms, plants and animals, in some systematic way. Common names were fine, but often vague, confusing, changed from one region to the next and the same creature could have more than one name depending on who was doing the naming.

To get away from this confusion these naturalists used Latin (the language of culture and education at that time), and gave each plant or animal they could find a descriptive name that accurately said something about the organism. These names were supposed to be unambiguous, but to make them accurate, they often had to use five or six Latin words, a length that quickly became cumbersome and hard to remember.

A different system was needed.

That different system was invented by a Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus. He realized that all objects could be grouped (note: in principle the system of classification devised by Linnaeus could be applied to stamps, coins, chairs, cars, or almost anything, but we will restrict our discussion to living organisms).

For example, it was obvious to Linnaeus that "all living organisms" represented one large group of objects, which could then be divided into two smaller groups; "plants" and "animals".

This way of doing things seems just common sense and remarkably easy, but it contains two important concepts:

\- defining the groups (i.e. "plants" and "animals"), and

\- deciding what factors determine where a particular organism is placed (i.e. "all plants are green", and "no animal is green")

Taxonomy, is the process of devising and defining the various groups. In Linnaeus' case, deciding that he needed two groups which he called 'Kingdoms', the "Animal Kingdom" and the "Plant Kingdom".

This is not as easy as it looks. Although it seems obvious at the level of multicellular organisms that some are green (plants) and some move around (animals), at the microscopic level some organisms are both green and move around! Where to they go?

Linnaeus took the idea of groups even further. After he had divided all organisms into two groups (the 'Kingdoms') he took each Kingdom and divided it up even further into smaller groups (which he called "Phyla"). All animals (those in the "Animal Kingdom"), could be divided up into those animals with a stiff rod up their backs (Chordata), and those that didn't (such as the sponges).

Now he had one set of groups nested inside a larger group, and he continued subdividing each smaller group into even smaller and smaller groups, until there was only one creature that would fit into the final, smallest category. At this point he had to stop.

Defining these groups unambiguously started to become a problem for Linnaeus, and it has been a problem ever since. When defining the groups do you either,

\- try to make the groups as large as possible (lumping as many organisms together as you can), or,

\- split the groups up into many small categories (so as to make each group as unique as possible).

The taxonomic "wars" between the 'lumpers' and the 'splitters' continues to this day.

Once the groups have been established and the criteria for membership defined, it then becomes possible to take any creature and ask a series of questions. The answers to these questions then automatically places that creature into the next subgroup, where the questions start again. For example,

Humans -

First question - **Plant or Animal?** - answer, humans are multicellular, heterotrophic creatures, so, they belong in the "Animal Kingdom".

Second question - **Stiff rod in their back?** - answer, yes, so they belong in the "Chordata" phylum (the name given by Linnaeus to this level of subgroup).

Third question - **Spinal chord surrounded by bone?** - answer, yes, so they belong in the "Vertebrata" subphylum.

And so on.

Today you could go on subdividing into the "Class", then the "Order", then the "Family", then the "Genus" and finally into the "Species". When you finally arrive at these last two groups (the Genus and the Species) you can go no further, so the system stops here.

Nomenclature In the system devised by Linnaeus, the last two names used for each creature, the Genus name and the Species name, are put together to form the scientific name of that organism. In the case of humans the Genus name is "Homo" and the Species name is "sapiens", so these two are put together and the scientific name for humans becomes Homo sapiens. (Note: italics are used for these names and the Genus name is capitalized).

Because each creature is given a "two word name", this is often called the binomial system. Since the time of Linnaeus this system has been expanded and improved, but the controversy concerning the taxa (groups) has not gone away. Linnaeus only had two "Kingdoms", today most people use a system based on five Kingdoms, while some prefer four and others, six. No one system is 'right' or 'wrong', just different.

Classification. Any system of classification (or 'grouping') tries to put objects into the same group if they share characteristics in common, and tries to put different objects into different groups if the differ from one another. Sounds easy? Try it some time!

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Statistics

Even today, many biologists have a hard time with statistics. There is no denying the power of numbers and the impeccable arguments that derive from quantitative analysis, but abstract ratios on a notepad don't seem to impress as much as having the living organism on the laboratory bench.

In this fictionalized story Mendel runs into trouble when he starts reporting his numbers and the mathematical arguments that stem from them. In real life, Mendel would have had similar difficulties. Few of the biologists present would have followed his statistical analysis (simple as it was), and few of the mathematicians would have followed the underlying biological principles (revolutionary as they were). He was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Fictional Brother Timothy immediately jumps on a loop hole. To any member of Mendel's audience who knew anything about statistics, any ratio reported from a small sample of plants might show a random "fluctuation" that could be almost any value. Mendel actually gives an example (which I have put into the mouth of Brother Timothy) where 32 yellow seeds were reported and only 1 green seed; a ratio of 32 : 1, not anywhere near 3:1! However, to biologists not versed in statistics, this might appear to be a contradictory result and invalidate Mendel's arguments and explanations.

Mendel considered that such "fluctuations" were just a normal part of studying biological phenomena using statistical principles, and that, as the reported numbers became larger and larger, so his ratios became closer and closer to the value 3 : 1. (Obviously Brother Timothy did not agree, but then he had other motives!).

Actually, Mendel never reports observing a "pure" 3:1 ratio for any experiment, plant or pea pod. He also never tells his audience how many plants he should have used in order to see this magical ratio or at what confidence level his numbers should be treated. A lot is taken for granted. He repeatedly reports ratios close to 3 : 1 and implies that this ratio should in fact be considered the "real" ratio even though he cannot justify his argument. Today a modern audience would have been as hard on him as I have made the fictional team of Brother Timothy and Heir Grunewald.

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About the Author

John Hulme is a retired Professor, now living and writing in Florida. He was educated in England - a long time ago - and arrived on the shores of New York carrying a single suitcase and lots of ideas. He has written several hardcover science books and was an early user of the fledgling internet as a teaching tool. Before retirement he wrote a set of fictional science stories about Gregor Mendel - the person who discovered genetics, which he has now converted into ebooks. Since retirement he has started on a long-cherished writing project of historical fiction - which you can now read for yourself.

In the "Shaftsman" Series -

The letters of a Roman Soldier written about the time of Julius Caesar.

Iron Shaft: Primus \- the first letter and introduction

Iron Shaft: Secundus \- how he joined the Tenth Legion, and got his nickname

Iron Shaft: Tertius \- how he helped the Druids, and saved Caesar

Iron Shaft: Quaternus \- poison, pearls, Druids and skulls

Iron Shaft: Quintus \- how Caesar got his ships

Other works by John Hulme are:

In the "Mendel" Series -

A fictionalized account of the life and times of Gregor Mendel - the discoverer of genetics.

Brother Gregory: Gene One \- a famous lecture, birth of genetics, a failure

Brother Gregory: Gene Two \- visitors to the Monastery, Brother Timothy plots

Brother Gregory: Gene Three \- Mendel's Sparrows

Brother Gregory: Gene Four \- the Saint, the Sinner and the Scientist

Brother Gregory: Gene Five \- and the bending of light

Brother Gregory: Gene Seven \- and the circles of carbon

The Bones of Saint Hugh \- how the bones of an English Saint arrive in Brno

Short Stories -

The Night After Christmas \- which was inspired by a real incident

As It Was Told \- A short story collection

These are all available from Smashwords.com.

(return to Table of Contents)

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