Hormones and Heredity: A Discussion of the Evolution of Adaptations and the Evolution of SpeciesCunningham, J. T. (Joseph Thomas)
Science
Hormones and Heredity: A Discussion of the Evolution of Adaptations and the Evolution of Species
Cunningham, J. T. (Joseph Thomas)
Endocrinology; Heredity; Hormones; Mendel's law
It is probably impossible to prove experimentally the influence of a
modified soma in one generation. I have endeavoured to find a case which
would not be open to the above criticism--that is, to find a character
which could be considered somatogenic and which was absent in a closely
allied variety. Most of the characters in domesticated varieties are
obviously gametogenic mutations, but the lop-ear in rabbits may be, partly
at least, somatogenic. Since many breeds have upright ears, we cannot say
that disuse of the external ear has produced lop-ears in domesticated
rabbits generally, but in lop-eared breeds the ears are much enlarged; and
though this may be gametogenic, the increased weight may have been the
cause of the loss of the power to erect the ears. I therefore tried
grafting ovaries from straight-eared females into lop-eared individuals.
The operation was perfectly successful in seven specimens--that is to say,
they recovered completely and lived for many months, up to a year or more
afterwards, but none of them became pregnant. When killed no trace of
ovary was in any of them; in every case it had been completely absorbed,
and the uteri and vagina were diminished in size and anaemic. For grafting
I used ovaries from young rabbits of various ages from seven days to six
weeks or more, but all were equally unsuccessful. Satisfactory evidence by
direct experiment of the inheritance of somatogenic modifications due to
external stimuli cannot be said to have been yet produced, and, as I have
shown, such evidence from the nature of the case must be very difficult to
obtain. The indirect evidence, however, which has been considered in this
volume is too strong to be ignored--namely, the case of Japanese
long-tailed fowls, that of colour on the lower sides of Flat-fishes, and
the similarity of the congenital development of the antlers in stags, to
the generally admitted effects of mechanical stimulation and injury on the
skin and superficial bones of Mammals.
The general conclusions which are logically to be drawn from our present
knowledge with regard to the problems of heredity and evolution in animals
are in my opinion as follows:--
1. All attempts to explain adaptation by gametogenic mutations, or changes
in gametic factors or 'genes,' have completely failed, as Bateson himself
has admitted.
2. The facts discovered concerning mutations and Mendelian heredity
harmonize with the nature of the majority of specific and varietal
characters, and with the diagnostic characters of many larger divisions in
classification.
3. Some of the most striking cases of adaptation, such as the organs of
respiration and circulation in terrestrial Vertebrates, and the asymmetry
of Flat-fishes, are developed in the individual by a metamorphosis which
is generally regarded as a recapitulation of the ancestral evolution. No
cases of mutation or gametogenic variation hitherto described exhibit a
similar metamorphosis or recapitulation.
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