Theodor Boveri

Life and Work of a Great Biologist

Fritz Baltzer

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520328419
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520328426
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Science & Technology Biographies
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Theodor Boveri: Life and Work of a Great Biologist, 1862–1915 by Fritz Baltzer, translated by Dorothea Rudnick, is both a scientific biography and a historical study of one of modern biology's most formative figures. Written for the German series *Grosse Naturforscher*, the book aims not only to recount Boveri's discoveries but also to reveal the intellectual trajectory and personal character that shaped them. Baltzer argues that in an era where scientific individuality risks being submerged in collective progress, it is essential to revisit pioneers like Boveri—whose meticulous cytological studies and conceptual innovations bridged cytology and genetics, laying foundations for twentieth-century biology. The volume situates Boveri's work within the classical period of cell biology, just before the methodological revolutions of biochemical assays, electron microscopy, and Drosophila genetics transformed the field. Baltzer writes as both historian and witness: he studied under Boveri in Würzburg from 1905 until Boveri's death in 1915, later drawing on that personal experience, as well as on surviving correspondence with colleagues such as Hans Spemann and W. C. Röntgen, to reconstruct the scientist's personality and thought. While much of Boveri's archive was lost in World War II, letters to family and close friends illuminate his humor, candor, and originality. The result is a portrait that combines scientific analysis with human detail, restoring Boveri's individuality to the broader history of biology. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

Many titles in the Voices Revived program are also newly available as ebooks, offered at a discounted price to support wider access to scholarly work.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Chronology
• FAMILY AND CHILDHOOD
• STUDENT AND RESEARCH YEARS IN MUNICH
• FRIENDSHIP WITH AUGUST PAULY
• ILLNESS, 1890
• HERTWIG’S LABORATORY AND THE CALL TO WURZBURG
• MARRIAGE, 1897
• LATER YEARS AND DEATH
• THE SCIENTIST
• THE INSTITUTE IN WURZBURG
• ART, NATURE, FRIENDS
• NAPLES
• EPILOGUE
• INTRODUCTION
• I. THE CHROMOSOME STUDIES The Theory of the Individuality of the Chromosomes
• Bovens Theory of Fertilization
• The Nucleus as Carrier of Heredity, Experiments on the Sea Urchin Egg, Merogonic Hybrids
• The Chromosome Theory of Inheritance, Experiments with Doubly Fertilized Sea Urchin Eggs (Dispermy Experiments)
• The Cytological Basis of Mendelian Phenomena, The Boveri-Sutton Theory
• II. INVESTIGATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE EGG AND THE COLLABORATION OF CYTOPLASM AND NUCLEUS IN EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT
• On the Structure, Development, and Potencies of the Sea Urchin Egg
• The Problem of Embryonic Differentiation, Analysis of Diminution in the Development of Ascaris
• III. BOVERI THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMIST
• IV. BOVERI’S VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF LIVING ORGANISMS
• THEODOR BOVERI’S SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS
• OBITUARY PUBLICATIONS
• CITATIONS FROM BOVERI’S SCIENTIFIC FIELD
• PUBLICATIONS FROM THE ZOOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF WURZBURG 1894-1915
• Glossary
• Index