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Of germ-plasm and zymoplasm: August Weismann, Carlo Emery and the debate about the transmission of acquired characteristics

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For Christiane,

the heart and the spirit

of the Archivio Storico

Abstract

In this essay I discuss the contents and the context of Italian zoologist and entomologist Carlo Emery’s discussion of the germ-plasm theory. August Weismann considered him one of his very few creditable supporters, and encouraged him to publish his theoretical reflections. In his Gedanken zur Descendenz- und Vererbungstheorie, which appeared between 1893 and 1903 as a series of five essays in the journal Biologisches Zentralblatt, Emery developed a very personal account, applying the concept of determinants to problems like atavism, sexual dimorphism, speciation, geographical isolation, transmission of characters, and putting forward, as early as 1903, the idea of a genetic program.

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Notes

  1. Emery’s collections and papers were dispersed after his death. His Coleoptera collection, containing about 9,000 species, was donated to the Museo civico di zoologia in Rome, the Hymenoptera collection to the Museo di storia naturale Giacomo Doria in Genoa. His manuscripts and drawings are conserved in the library of the Dipartimento di scienze biologiche, geologiche e ambientali in Bologna, and his correspondence in the library ‘Gabriele Goidanich’ of the Faculty of Agriculture in Bologna.

  2. He accepted the membership of the Accademia di Scienze naturali di Napoli (14 June 1893), the Società Veneto-Trentina di scienze naturali (19 May 1897), the Istituto Veneto di scienze naturali (February 1901), the Accademia di Scienze naturali di Torino (14 March 1905), and the Accademia delle Scienze di Bologna (18 February 1907); besides those of Emery and Rignano, he received essays and books from Giacomo Cattaneo (17 February 1887), from the Società editrice Dante Alighieri (9 May 1895) and from the Accademia di Scienze naturali di Napoli (30 October 1910); see Weismann’s letters to Rignani (27 September 1906; 3 March 1907; 26 October 1909).

  3. Following Emery’s advice, Weismann added Giardina’s paper to the English translation of his Vorträge (Weismann 1904, p. 378).

  4. This letter is missing in the archive of the Biblioteca Goidanich. On 16 October 1898 Weismann wrote to Emery again, saying how much he would be delighted to exchange opinion about the germ-plasm theory. However, he never mailed this letter (Churchill and Risler 1999, p. 301).

  5. These pages are missing in the English translation of Weismann’s pamphlet (1893c).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Doris Schweizer (Historische Sammlungen der Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg), MircoTravaglini (Dipartimento di scienze biologiche geologiche e ambientali di Bologna), Marina Zuccoli and Roberta Giannotti (Biblioteca centralizzata ‘Gabriele Goidanich’, Bologna).

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  1. Dipartimento di Storia, Culture, Civiltà, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Via Nicolò Dall’Arca, 26, 40129, Bologna, Italy

    Ariane Dröscher

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Dröscher, A. Of germ-plasm and zymoplasm: August Weismann, Carlo Emery and the debate about the transmission of acquired characteristics. HPLS 36, 394–403 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-014-0046-6

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