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DNA translated: Friedrich Miescher's discovery of nuclein in its original context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2021

Kersten Hall  and
Neeraja Sankaran
Kersten Hall*
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
Neeraja Sankaran
Affiliation:
Utrecht University
*
*Corresponding author: Kersten Hall, Email: medkth@leeds.ac.uk.
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Abstract

In 1871, the Swiss physiological chemist Friedrich Miescher published the results of a detailed chemical analysis of pus cells, in which he showed that the nuclei of these cells contained a hitherto unknown phosphorus-rich chemical which he named ‘nuclein’ for its specific localisation. Published in German, ‘Ueber Die Chemische Zusammensetzung Der Eiterzellen’, [On the Chemical Composition of Pus Cells] Medicinisch-Chemische Untersuchungen (1871) 4: 441–60, was the first publication to describe DNA, and yet remains relatively obscure. We therefore undertook a translation of the paper into English, which, together with the original article, can be accessed via the following link https://doi.org/10.1017/S000708742000062X. In this paper, we offer some intellectual context for its publication and immediate reception.

Type
Forum: Science in Translation
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 99 - 107
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of British Society for the History of Science.

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References

1 It would be remiss of us not to mention a recent exception to this trend: Williams, Gareth, Unravelling the Double Helix: The Lost Heroes of DNA, London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2019Google Scholar, where the discovery is described in some detail (pp. 9–22).

2 RNA viruses and prions are the only known exceptions.

3 Darwin, Charles, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 1st edn, London: John Murray, 1859Google Scholar; Gregor Mendel, ‘Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden’ (Experiments on plant hybridization), Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereines in Brünn (1865).

4 Buess, Heinrich, ‘Joh. Friedrich Miescher and the contribution of Basle physicians to the biology of the nineteenth century’, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine (1953) 25(4), pp. 250–61Google ScholarPubMed; Dahm, Ralf, ‘Friedrich Miescher and the discovery of DNA’, Developmental Biology (2005) 278(2), pp. 274–88, 275Google ScholarPubMed.

5 Wilhelm His, ed., Die histochemischen und physiologischen Arbeiten von Friedrich Miescher (The Histochemical and Physiological Works of Friedrich Miescher), 2 vols., Leipzig: F.C.W. Vogel, 1897, vol. 1, p. 7.

6 Perutz, Max F., ‘Hoppe-Seyler, Stokes and Haemoglobin’, Biological Chemistry Hoppe-Seyler (1995) 376(8), pp. 449–50, 50Google ScholarPubMed; Felix Hoppe, ‘Über das Verhalten des Blutfarbstoffes im Spectrum des Sonnenlichtes’ (On the behavior of blood pigments in the spectrum of sunlight), Virchows Archiv (1862) 23(3), pp. 446–9; and Felix Hoppe-Seyler, ‘Ueber die chemischen und optischen Eigenschaften des Blutfarbstoffs’ (On the chemical and optical properties of blood pigments), Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medicin (1864) 29(5–6), pp. 597–600. Note: orphaned at a relatively young age, Hoppe-Seyler attached the name Seyler to his family name, Hoppe, in 1864 when he was formally adopted by his brother-in-law Georg Seyler. Dahm, Ralf, ‘The first discovery of DNA’, American Scientist (2008) 96(4), pp. 320–7, 325CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Miescher wrote many long letters describing his work to his family – both his parents and his uncle – which were compiled by Wilhelm His (op. cit. (5)) along with his own responses and published in the form of two edited volumes. Ralf Dahm has made extensive use of this compendium in his scholarship, evident from the large number of excerpts he has quoted in translation in his English-language publications on Miescher. See, for example, Dahm, op. cit. (4); Dahm, op. cit. (6); and Dahm, Ralf, ‘Discovering DNA: Friedrich Miescher and the early years of nucleic acid research’, Human Genetics (2008) 122(6), pp. 565–81CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

8 Jesse Greenstein, P., ‘Friedrich Miescher, 1844–1895’, Scientific Monthly (1943) 57(6), pp. 523–32, 525Google Scholar.

9 Quoted in His, op. cit. (5), p. 9, letter from Miescher to his parents, 23 December 1869.

10 Quoted in His, op. cit. (5), p. 9, letter from Miescher to his parents, 19 February 1870.

11 Quoted in His, op. cit. (5), p. 42, letter VI from Hoppe-Seyler to Miescher, 24 February 1870.

12 German for ‘Medical Chemical Investigations’. It is worth mentioning that Hoppe-Seyler was the founder and publisher of this journal, which was renamed in his honour after his death in 1895 as Hoppe-Seyler’s Zeitschrift fiir physiologische Chemie. See Karlson, P., ‘100 years ago: Hoppe-Seyler’s Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie’, Trends in Biochemical Sciences (1977) 2, pp. 189–90, 189CrossRefGoogle Scholar. F. Hoppe-Seyler, ‘Ueber die chemische Zusammensetzung des Eiters’ (On the chemical composition of pus), Medicinisch-chemische Untersuchungen (1871) 4, pp. 486–501; P. Plósz, ‘Ueber das chemische Verhalten der Kerne der Vogel- und Schlangenblutkörperchen’ (On the chemical behavior of the nuclei of bird and snake blood corpuscles), Medicinisch-chemische Untersuchungen (1871) 4, pp. 461–2.

13 F. Miescher, ‘Die Kerngebilde im Dotter des Hühnereies’ (The structure of nuclei in the yolk of hen's eggs), Medicinisch-chemische Untersuchungen (1871) 4, pp. 503–9.

14 Hoppe-Seyler, op. cit. (12), pp. 488–9; N. Lubavin, ‘Ueber die künstliche Pepsin: Verdauung des Casein und die Einwirkung von Wasser auf Eiweisssubstanzen’ (Concerning the digestion of casein with synthetic pepsin and the effect of water on protein substances), Medicinisch-chemische Untersuchungen (1871) 4, pp. 463–85.

15 Hoppe-Seyler, op. cit. (12), pp. 488–9; Lubavin, op. cit. (14).

16 Hoppe-Seyler, op. cit. (12), p. 489.

17 Hoppe-Seyler, op. cit. (12), p. 486.

18 R. Altmann, ‘Über Nucleinsäuren’ (On nucleic acids), Arch Anat Physiol (1889) 1, pp. 524–36.

19 Friedrich Miescher, ‘Die Spermatozoen einiger Wirbeltiere: Ein Beitrag zur Histochemie’ (The spermatozoa of some vertebrates: a contribution to histochemistry), Verhandlungen der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Basel (1874) 6, pp. 138–208, cited (in translation) in Dahm, op. cit. (7), p. 574.

20 Hooke, Robert, Micrographia or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses (1665), New York: Cosmo Classics, 2007Google Scholar; Mazzarello, Paolo, ‘A unifying concept: the history of cell theory’, Nature Cell Biology (1999) 1, pp. E13–E15, E14CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

21 Mazzarello, op. cit. (20), p. E14.

22 Coleman, William, ‘Cell, nucleus, and inheritance: an historical study’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1965) 109, pp. 124–58, 126Google Scholar.

23 Quoted in His, op. cit. (5), p. 9, letter from Miescher to His, 10 November 1890, letter from Miescher to Hoppe-Seyler, July? 1870 (undated), and letter from Miescher to His, 20 December 1890.

24 Friedrich Miescher, ‘Nachträglichen Bemerkungen’ (Later observations), in His, op. cit. (5), vol. 2, p. 34.

25 As cited in Olby, Robert, ‘Cell chemistry in Miescher's day’, Medical history (1969) 13, pp. 377–82, 379CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

26 Olby, op. cit. (25), p. 379.

27 Dahm, op. cit. (4), p. 275.

28 Miescher, op. cit. (24).

29 His, op. cit. (5), p. 53; Hoppe-Seyler, op. cit. (12), p. 501j.

30 For more about the status on physiological chemistry in Miescher's time see Fruton, Joseph, Molecules and Life: Essays in the History of Biochemistry, New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1973, p. 203Google Scholar.

31 C. Correns, ‘Mendel's Regel über das Verhalten der Nachkommenschaft der Rassenbastarde’ (Mendel's law on the behaviour of progeny of variable hybrids), Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft (1900) 8, pp. 156–68; Hugo de Vries, ‘Sur la loi de disjunction des hybrides’ (On the law of hybrid disjunction), Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences (1900) 130, pp. 845–7; E. Tschermak, ‘Ueber künstliche kreuzung bei Pisum sativum’ (On the artificial crossing of Pisum sativum), Berichte der Deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft (1900) 18, pp. 232–49.

32 See, for instance, B.A. Kimmelman, ‘A progressive era discipline: genetics at American agricultural colleges and experiment stations, 1900–1920’, dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1987, available at https://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI8804919; G.E. Allen, ‘The reception of mendelism in the United States, 1900–1930’, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences, Series III, Sciences de la vie (2000) 323, pp. 1081–8; Harwood, J., ‘Did mendelism transform plant breeding? Genetic theory and breeding practice, 1900–1945’, in Phillips, Denise and Kingsland, Sharon (eds.), New Perspectives on the History of Life Sciences and Agriculture, Switzerland: Springer, 2015, pp. 345–70Google Scholar.

33 Mendel, Gregor, ‘Experiments in plant hybridisation’, translated by Druery, C.T. with foreword by Bateson, W., Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society (1901) 26, pp. 1–32Google Scholar.

34 S. Mueller-Wille and K. Hall, ‘Legumes and linguistics: translating Mendel for the 21st century’, at www.bshs.org.uk/bshs-translations/mendel. Also Gregor Mendel: Experiments on Plant Hybrids, new translation with commentary, tr. Staffan Müller-Wille and Kersten Hall, ed. Staffan Müller-Wille, Kersten Hall and Ondřej Dostál, Brno: Masaryk University Press, 2020.

35 Quoted in Buess, op. cit. (4), p. 260.

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