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Julia Bell and the Treasury of Human Inheritance

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Abstract

The Treasury of Human Inheritance represents the most extensive, and one of the earliest series of documentations and analyses of human genetic disorders. Published between 1909 and 1958, from The Galton Laboratory, London, most of the numerous sections were written by Julia Bell, who represents a key figure in the development of human and medical genetics. Her combination of mathematical training, genetic knowledge and clinical expertise yielded numerous important insights into human inheritance first appearing in the Treasury; it remains a valuable scientific as well as an historical record of the genetics of a range of important inherited disorders.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Professor Sue Povey, of the Galton Laboratory, London, and Cambridge University Press, for allowing me to reproduce material from Treasury of Human Inheritance. Part of this work was presented at the First International Workshop on Genetics, Medicine and History, held in Birmingham, May 2003.

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Correspondence to Peter S. Harper.

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Harper, P.S. Julia Bell and the Treasury of Human Inheritance. Hum Genet 116, 422–432 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00439-005-1264-5

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