The Many Peas and How They Grew

This is a biography of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), often called “the father of genetics,” whose experiments with pea plants formed the basis of the modern understanding of inheritance. He coined the terms “dominant” and “recessive” traits, now often discussed in junior high and high school biology classes with respect to such things as eye or hair color in humans. Author Robin Marantz Henig also discusses some of the implications of modern genetic manipulation, as well as some of the implications of modern genetics on her own life.

Henig admits there’s very little to go on in reconstructing Mendel’s life. She lists 3 short papers, seven letters to a botanist in Munich and a brief autobiography, written when he was 28. His effects were burned after his death by the monastery he’d lived in, so whatever lab notes—assuming he made any—are gone. Nevertheless, she’s able to use such oddball things as exams Mendel took and correspondence with public officials late in life to draw a plausible portrait of a man whose life is not as well known as his work.

The book opens in 1900, some 15 years after Mendel’s death, with William Bateson, an English zoologist, reading Mendel’s paper while riding train to give a lecture. What he read so convinced him of the correctness of Mendel’s idea he spent the rest of his life furthering them, and, in Henig’s view, creating, or at least contributing to, the “myth” of Mendel as a genius ignored in his lifetime, whose ideas the world was not ready to receive until the 20th century. Henig argues that Bateson sought to create a hero when the controversy heated up about the acceptance of Mendel’s ideas.

Mendel was born in Heizendorf in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He became an Augustinian monk at 21 and entered the monastery of St. Thomas in the present day Czech city now known as Brno. As a happy coincidence, the order and abbot of the monastery, Cyrill Napp, encouraged scientific inquiry.

Interestingly enough, Mendel worked first with mice in trying to discern how traits were carried from one generation to the next. The bishop, however, objected to this as unseemly, in part because it would mean mice copulating in the presence of a man who’d taken a vow of chastity.

Henig quotes Mendel as saying later, “You see, the bishop did not understand that plants also have sex.” (p. 16).

All this does make for an interesting story. Henig portrays Mendel as a brilliant but flawed human being, whose work has left a legacy with a profound impact on our own day, though he could hardly have guessed that. He’d ordered 40 reprints of his only public lectures, one of which famously ended up going to Charles Darwin. It was found among Darwin’s effects after his death, unopened.

Of the 40 reprints, Henig states that the fates of 12 are known. Many, like Darwin’s, were unread. A few ended up in university collections after the deaths of original recipients. Only one brought about a reply, that from botanist Karl von Naegli, who said, in effect, that Mendel was basing his conclusions on too little data. Mendel sent further letters, hoping to clarify his ideas.

While Henig admits that with little data on Mendel’s life itself, a lot of what she writes calls for “educated guesses.” She offers some speculation, but it’s clear when she’s doing so. Her writing is wonderful throughout. As an example:

Moravian pea plants produce fat, slightly way pods that fit snugly in the palm of your hand. At a little over three inches long, each one nestles there as if specifically designed to do so. When you bring the pod indoors, away from the sun, it becomes cool to the touch. A little jester’s cap at one end marks where it was pulled of f the stalk, and the peas in side feel like marbles in a leather pouch. To split the pod open—a sharp finger nail helps to get you started—you need two hands: one the cradle it, the other to do the splitting. Open, it bursts with a scent of grass. Each pod holds half a dozen peas, sometimes more, and each make a tiny, nearly inaudible “pop” when you pull it free.

This cradling, splitting and popping would occupy Mendel over long evenings for a long, long time… (p. 82)

I will recommend this one heartily as an interesting and well-written book on an uncommon, albeit intriguing subject.