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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The singular fate of Genetics in the History of French Biology, 1900-1940

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In this study we have examined the reception of Mendelism in France from 1900 to 1940, and the place of some of the extra-Mendelian traditions of research that contributed to the development of genetics in France after World War II. Our major findings are: (1) Mendelism was widely disseminated in France and thoroughly understood by many French biologists from 1900 on. With the notable exception of Lucien Cuenot, however, there were few fundamental contributions to the Mendelian tradition, and virtually none from about 1915 to the midthirties. Prior to 1900, Cuenot's work was already marked by a striking interest in physiological mechanisms; his physiological preoccupations played a considerable role in his account of the inheritance of coat color and of susceptibility to tumors in mice. His analysis of the roles of the many genes involved in pigment formation was developed with an eye to one of the first models of the metabolic reactions involved. It yielded one of the earliest suggestions that the steps controlled by single genes involve enzymes as the products of genes. (2) The inflexible structure of the French universities played an important role in discouraging research in genetics and in the failure to train the post-World War I generation in that discipline. (3) During this period the disciplines of physiology, microbiology, and causal embryology were dominant in French experimental biology. The issues that were most prominent within these disciplines—differentiation and development, regulation of growth and morphology, infection and assimilation—were not easily treated within genetics. The failure of Mendelism to resolve a variety of legitimate explanatory issues to the satisfaction of serious investigators trained in the dominant French disciplines also contributed to the failure of Mendelism to penetrate French science. The violent anti-Mendelian polemics put forward by many of the most committed neo-Lamarckians raised many of the same issues regarding the supposed insufficiency of Mendelism. Cuenot's reluctance to encourage his students to pursue careers in genetics illustrates the compound nature of the resistance.