Heredity in the light of recent research / by the late L. Doncaster.

  • Doncaster, L. (Leonard), 1877-1920.
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Heredity in the light of recent research / by the late L. Doncaster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    II] MATERIAL BASIS 153 somes and body-characters is as yet in its infancy ; and this brief note can only sketch the lines on which modern work seems to support Weismann's hypo¬ thesis that the chromosomes are the physical basis of inheritance. It will be seen that his suggestion that all the chromosomes are on the whole similar is not confirmed, but the evidence that chromosomes do bear factors for inherited characters is consider¬ ably stronger than when the idea was first put forward \ ^ The suggestion referred to in the note on p. 97 must also be borne in mind, that it is not the ' factor ' alone which determines the development of a character, but a physiological relation between the factor contained in a chromosome and the surrounding protoplasm. If the latter is altered from any cause, the relation may be changed and the character modified, just as the plants raised from one sample of seed may be modified by growing them in different soils. If, as is quite possible, the relation is a reciprocal one, the factor may in some cases be permanently modified, and there would thus be a mechanism for the transmission of acquired modifications. At present, however, it must be admitted that experiment hardly provides sufficient basis for speculations such as these. 10—5