The Structure of the DNA Molecule Access Excellence Classic
Collection Although scientists as far back in history as
Aristotle recognized that the features of one generation are
passed on to the next (...like begets like...) it was not until
the 1860's that the fundamental principles of genetic
inheritance were described by Gregor Mendel. Mendel's work with
common garden peas, pisum sativum, led him to hypothesize that
phenotypic traits (physical characteristics) are the result of
the interaction of discrete particles, which we now call genes,
and that both parents provide particles which make up the
characteristics of the offspring. His theories were, however,
widely disregarded by scientists of the time. In the last
quarter of the 19th century, however, microscopists and
cytologists, interested in the process of cell division,
developed both the equipment and the methods needed to visualize
chromosomes and their division in the processes of mitosis (A.
Schneider, 1873) and of meiosis (E. Beneden, 1883). As