Human and mammalian cytogenetics. An historical perspective

Abstract

The history of science is mostly written retrospec tively, a generation or two after the actual events being discussed. Science historians are now analyzing and evaluating the origins of evolutionary and genetical theory in the nineteenth century and a sort of "Darwin industry" seems to have grown up. A history of mammalian cytogenetics by one of the main participants is, hence, a very welcome change, since it has a vividness, an immediacy and a personal flavor which these scholarly tomes and the official biog raphies of scientists mostly lack. The life of the author, Chinese-born, T.C. Hsu, has been a romantic and color ful one, and he is himself a unique personality, so that his book is a very unusual blend of reminiscences, history of his special field (which has transformed human genetics) and wise comments on the mistakes made along the way. The best qualities of a very fine Chinese mind have contributed to Dr. Hsu's career, including this book. Those qualities (which seem to me especially Chinese) include a kind of transparent honesty, a very direct em pirical approach to problems and superb technical ability. 1. Introduction -- 2. The Knights of the Dark Age -- 3. The Hypotonic Miracle -- 4. From 48 to 46 -- 5. The Foundation of Somatic Cell Genetics -- 6. Funny Looking Kids -- 7. Of Beans, Weeds, and Human Cytogenetics -- 8. Sex and the Single Chromosome -- 9. The Denver Conference and Beyond -- 10. The Occasional Lion Tamer -- 11. The Pathologist Who Went Astray -- 12. Anomalous Sex Chromosome Systems -- 13. The Somatic Cell Genetics Conferences -- 14. Mammals for Cytogeneticists -- 15. Old Cultures Never Die? -- 16. The Bandwagon -- 17. In Situ Hybridization: Marriage Between Molecular Biology and Cytology -- 18. Junk DNA and Chromatin? -- 19. The Giemsa Magic -- 20. Parasexual Reproduction -- 21. Interphase Chromosomes -- 22. Cancer Chromosomes -- 23. Chromosomes and Mammalian Phylogeny -- 24. The Future -- Suggested Readings -- References.