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Johann Gregor Mendel: The Father of Genetics
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13331 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1987 |
3,091 Words |
| Author
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Stanton Wormley
Stanton Wormley is a free-lance writer who resides in
Bridgton, Maine. |
Few branches of science have had a more profound effect on human thought - or have captured more public attention - than genetics. Despite this, the life and work of the man considered the founder of the science are not well known. That man, whose seminal research is considered the basis of this field, is Johann Gregor Mendel.
He was born Johann Mendel on July 22, 1822, in the small farming town of Hyncice in northern Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was the second of three children and the only son born to Anton Mendel, a peasant farmer and amateur horticulturist, and his wife, Rosine. Young Johann's intellectual ability became quite evident very early in his education, first at the elementary school in Hyncice, then the middle school in Leipnik and the Imperial Royal Gymnasium in Troppau, and, from 1840 through 1843, at the Philosophical Institute at Olmutz.
Mendel's elementary education was unusually advanced for its day, introducing him not only to reading, writing, and mathematics, but natural science, natural history, horticulture, and beekeeping. As a result of this early education Mendel developed a strong interest in both the physical and biological sciences. These two provided him with the basic tools needed to carry out his later research on peas. Mendel acquired his interest in horticulture initially from his father and the local priest, who was also involved in plant breeding.
Throughout his educational training, Mendel had to contend with the severe privation occasioned by his family's poverty. He was sustained only by his intense desire to learn and by the generosity of his younger sister Theresia, who have up a substantial portion of her dowry to give Johann enough to live on during his studies at the Philosophical Institute.
The extreme hardship he suffered affected his health for the rest of his life. As he stated years later, he "felt himself compelled to enter a station in life which would free him from the bitter struggle for existence." In an attempt to escape his poverty and continue his studies, and at the suggestion of his physics teacher at the Philosophical Institute, Friedrich Franz, Mendel applied for candidacy to the Augustinian monastery of St. Thomas at Brunn (now Brno).
The monastic life at Brunn, as described by Franz, was exactly what Mendel was seeking: not an insular, ascetic community devoted only to prayer and chants, but a collection of some of the most respected
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