Abstract
THE current number of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (vol. lix., part 4) will be of exceptional interest to students of heredity from the cytological point of view. Dr. L. Doncaster contributes a very useful review of the present state of the evidence with regard to the material basis of hereditary transmission and sex-determination, under the title, “Chromosomes, Heredity and Sex.” He concludes that the arguments in favour of the view that Mendelian characters are determined by chromosomes, though very strong indirectly, are lacking in direct evidence. The direct evidence of a relation between chromosomes and sex-determination is much stronger, and various cases are discussed. The phenomena of sex-limited inheritance, now known to occur in various groups of the animal kingdom, taken in conjunction with this relation, afford strong support to the view that the chromosomes play a very important part in the transmission of Mendelian characters, although the part played by the cytoplasm must also be taken into account. With regard to sex-determination difficulties arise in connection with the fact that this has been shown in certain cases to be modifiable by environmental conditions, and it therefore seems probable that the sex chromosome is associated with a particular type of cell-metabolism, which in turn is responsible for sex-determination.
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Cytological Aspects of Heredity . Nature 93, 175 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/093175a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/093175a0