Human Heredity in the Twentieth Century

321 Pages·2013·2.103 MB·English

by  Bernd Gausemeier, Staffan Müller-Wille, Edmund Ramsden (eds.)

HUMAN HEREDITY
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Studies for the Society for the
Social History of Medicine
Series Editors: David Cantor
Keir Waddington
Titles in this Series
1 Meat, Medicine and Human Health in the Twentieth Century
David Cantor, Christian Bonah and Matthias Dörries (eds)
2 Locating Health: Historical and Anthropological Investigations of
Place and Health
Erika Dyck and Christopher Fletcher (eds)
3 Medicine in the Remote and Rural North, 1800–2000
J. T. H. Connor and Stephan Curtis (eds)
4 A Modern History of the Stomach: Gastric Illness, Medicine and
British Society, 1800–1950
Ian Miller
5 War and the Militarization of British Army Medicine, 1793–1830
Catherine Kelly
6 Nervous Disease in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain: Th e Reality of a
Fashionable Disorder
Heather R. Beatty
7 Desperate Housewives, Neuroses and the Domestic Environment,
1945–1970
Ali Haggett
8 Disabled Children: Contested Caring, 1850–1979
Anne Borsay and Pamela Dale (eds)
9 Toxicants, Health and Regulation since 1945
Soraya Boudia and Nathalie Jas (eds)
10 A Medical History of Skin: Scratching the Surface
Jonathan Reinarz and Kevin Siena (eds)
11 Th e Care of Older People: England and Japan, A Comparative Study
Mayumi Hayashi
12 Child Guidance in Britain, 1918–1955: Th e Dangerous Age of Childhood
John Stewart
13 Modern German Midwifery, 1885–1960
Lynne Fallwell
14 Western Maternity and Medicine, 1880–1990
Janet Greenlees and Linda Bryder (eds)
Forthcoming Titles
Biologics, A History of Agents Made From Living Organisms in the
Twentieth Century
Alexander von Schwerin, Heiko Stoff and Bettina Wahrig (eds)
Bacteria in Britain, 1880–1939
Rosemary Wall
Health and Citizenship: Political Cultures of Health in Modern Europe
Frank Huisman and Harry Oosterhuis (eds)
Institutionalizing the Insane in Nineteenth-Century England
Anna Shepherd
Th e Politics of Hospital Provision in Early Twentieth-Century Britain
Barry M. Doyle
Psychiatry and Chinese History
Howard Chiang (ed.)
Stress in Post-War Britain
Mark Jackson (ed.)
www.pickeringchatto.com/sshm

HUMAN HEREDITY
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Edited by
Bernd Gausemeier, Staff an Müller-Wille and Edmund Ramsden
PICKERING & CHATTO
2013
Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
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© Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Ltd 2013
© Bernd Gausemeier, Staff an Müller-Wille and Edmund Ramsden 2013
To the best of the Publisher’s knowledge every eff ort has been made to contact
relevant copyright holders and to clear any relevant copyright issues. 
Any omissions that come to their attention will be remedied in future editions.
british library cataloguing in publication data
Human heredity in the twentieth century. – (Studies for the Society for the
Social History of Medicine)
1. Human genetics – Study and teaching – History – 20th century. 2. Human
genetics – Social aspects. 3. Human genetics – Political aspects.
I. Series II. Gausemeier, Bernd editor of compilation. III. Muller-Wille, Staff an,
1964– editor of compilation. IV. Ramsden, Edmund editor of compilation.
599.9’35-dc23
ISBN-13: 9781848934269
e: 9781781440513
∞

Th is publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to the American
National Standard for the Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Berforts Information Press
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
List of Contributors xi
List of Figures and Tables xvii
Introduction: Human Heredity in the Twentieth Century –
Bernd Gausemeier, Staff an Müller-Wille and Edmund Ramsden 1
Part I: Constructing Surveys of Heredity
1 Borderlands of Heredity: Th e Debate about Hereditary
Susceptibility to Tuberculosis, 1882–1945 – Bernd Gausemeier 13
2 Championing a US Clinic for Human Heredity: Pre-War Concepts
and Post-War Constructs – Philip K. Wilson 27
3 Remodelling the Boundaries of Normality: Lionel S. Penrose and
Population Surveys of Mental Ability – Edmund Ramsden 39
Part II: Blood and Populations
4 From ‘Races’ to ‘Isolates’ and ‘Endogamous Communities’: Human
Genetics and the Notion of Human Diversity in the 1950s
– Veronika Lipphardt 55
5 Between the Transfusion Services and Blood Group Research:
Human Genetics in Britain during World War II – Jenny Bangham 69
6 Th e Abandonment of Race: Researching Human Diversity in
Switzerland, 1944–56 – Pascal Germann 85
7 Post-War and Post-Revolution: Medical Genetics and Social
Anthropology in Mexico, 1945–70 – Edna Suárez-Diaz and
Ana Barahona 101
Part III: Human Heredity in the Laboratory
8 From Agriculture to Genomics: Th e Animal Side of Human Genetics
and the Organization of Model Organisms in the Longue Durée
– Alexander von Schwerin 113
9 Cereals, Chromosomes and Colchicine: Crop Varieties at the
Estación Experimental Aula Dei and Human Cytogenetics,
1948–58 – María Jesús Santesmases 127
viii Human Heredity in the Twentieth Century
10 Putting Human Genetics on a Solid Basis: Human Chromosome
Research, 1950s–1970s – Soraya de Chadarevian 141
Part IV: Understanding and Managing Disease
11 Th e Disappearance of the Concept of Anticipation in the Post-War
World – Judith E. Friedman 153
12 ‘Th e Most Hereditary of All Diseases’: Haemophilia and the Utility
of Genetics for Haematology, 1930–70 – Stephen Pemberton 165
13 How PKU Became a Genetic Disease – Diane B. Paul 179
Part V: Reconstructing Discipline(s)
14 Th e Emergence of Genetic Counselling in the Federal Republic of
Germany: Continuity and Change in the Narratives of Human
Geneticists, c. 1968–80 – Anne Cottebrune 193
15 Performing Anger: H. J. Muller, James V. Neel and Radiation Risk
– Susan Lindee 205
16 Th e Struggle for Authority over Italian Genetics: Th e Ninth
International Congress of Genetics in Bellagio, 1948–53
– Francesco Cassata 217
Notes 229
Index 291
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Th e contributions to this volume go back to a conference organized at the Uni-
versity of Exeter in September 2010. Th e conference was kindly supported by
the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, and through a Con-
ference Grant by the Wellcome Trust (Grant WT092323). Th e event was the
last in a series of workshops that were organized within the context of a long-
term, interdisciplinary project dedicated to the Cultural History of Heredity,
which received continuous funding in the years 2001–9 from the Karl Schae-
dler Foundation, Liechtenstein. For documentation of the workshops, and the
project as a whole, see http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/
DeptIII_Cultural_History_Heredity/index_html [accessed 29 August 2012].
We are especially grateful to Hans-Jörg Rheinberger for his indefatigable per-
sonal support, and to Claire Keyte, Birgitta von Mallinckrodt and Antje Radeck
for their stellar administrative advice and help. We would like to thank Luc
Berlivet, Peter Harper, Brad Hume, Djatou Medard, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger,
Miguel Garcia Sanchez, Helga Satzinger, Nathaniel Comfort, Paul Weindling
and Jan Witkowski, who all helped to develop the arguments presented in this
book with their comments and contributions. Our thanks also extend to Ruth
Ireland, Mark Pollard and David Cantor for their careful editorial supervision.
– ix –