2. Historical Background of Genetics

3. Prehistoric Times Between 8000 & 1000 BC 5000 BC
Horses, camels, oxen were domesticated
5000 BC
Cultivation of plants like maize, wheat
and rice
Assyrian art depicts artificial pollination of the date palm (Babylonia)

4. Greek Influence (Global Age of Greek)
Give attention to subjects of reproduction and heredity of human beings
Evident in the writings of the Hippocratic School of Medicine
( BC)
Aristotle ( BC)

5. Hippocrates (Treatise On The Seed)
Argues that male semen is formed in numerous parts of the body.
“Humors” act as the bearers of hereditary traits, diseased or healthy.

6. Aristotle
Male semen was formed from blood and that its generative power resides in a Vital Heat.
The Vital Heat has the capacity to produce offspring of the same form.
I generated offspring by cooking and shaping the menstrual blood produced by the female, which was the physical substance giving rise to an offspring.

7. Dawn of Modern Biology

8. William Harvey (1960)
Theory of epigenesist (organism is delivered from substances present in the egg)
New structures are not present initially but instead are formed de novo in the embryo.

9. Theory of Performation
17th Century
Sex cells contains complete miniature adult called homunculus

10. other significant findings…
John Dalton (1808)
atomic theory
Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann
Cell theory
Redi, Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur
Disprove the spontaneous generation theory

11. The Fixity of Species
Animal and plant groups remains unchanged in form from the moment of their appearance.
Popularized by several including Carolus Linnaeus

12. Darwin and Evolution The origin of species in 1859
Species arose from modifications
Theory of Natural Selection
Book on “Variations in Animals and Plants under Domestication” (explanation on how heritable variations arises gradually over time)
Gemmules -physical units gathered by blood into the semen, subject to alternation

13. Discoveries in 19th Century
Matters is composed of atoms.
Cells are the fundamental units of living organisms.
Nuclei somehow serve as the “life force” of the cell.
Chromosomes housed within the nuclei somehow play an important role in heredity.

14. Modern Genetics Early Scientists Charles Darwin Gregor Mendel Genetics
Dawn of Modern Biology
Charles Darwin
Gregor Mendel
Genetics

15. Concepts Related to Genetics