Gregor Johann Mendel.

Abstract

Gregor Mendel. Illustration by Venita Jay, MD, FRCPC. O August 6, 1847, Gregor Johann Mendel was ordained as a priest in Brunn, Moravia. Luckily for medicine, Mendel’s personality and psychosomatic disposition rendered him unsuitable for practical pastoral duties. It was 18 years later that the results of his famous experiments with the garden pea were presented to the Brunn Natural History Society. In the following year, the landmark work, ‘‘Experiments on Plant Hybrids,’’ was published. Even the enigmatic Mendel, who elucidated the fundamental principles of genetics, was perhaps unaware of the monumental nature of his work. Upon his death in 1884, no one had yet recognized him as the founder of a new and powerful science; the belated discovery of this cloistered monk would come years later. Born Johann Mendel in July 1822, in Heizendorf, Silesia (then in Austria), Mendel hailed from a humble family of peasants devoted to farming and gardening. Johann Schreiber, a priest from a Moravian parish, recognized the immense talent in the young Mendel and encouraged the family, which was under dire financial circumstances, to send Mendel for higher education. Schreiber was an expert fruit grower with a special interest in natural history and would have a lasting influence on Mendel. It was with all of Mendel’s strength and endurance and the support of his family that he was able to complete his 2-year course of philosophical studies. When Mendel’s father died, the financial hardship facing his family became more severe. Mendel tried private tutoring, but with his perpetual struggle to make ends meet, he could see no satisfactory worldly existence compatible with his intellectual ideals. He thus turned to theology as a vocational choice, and joined the Augustinian Monastery in Brno (Brunn) in 1843. At the time, Brunn was a thriving cultural center in Moravia. The abbot of this monastery, Franz Cyrill Napp, was an enigmatic figure. An ardent linguist proficient in ancient Oriental languages, Napp had many other passions, including horticulture, viniculture, and fruit growing. Many exotic plants were grown in Napp’s monastery. It was in this monastery that the young Mendel stepped in, taking the name Gregor. There was intense interest in animal and plant breeding