Article ID: CBB000773240

Overheated Rats, Race, and the Double Gland: Paul Kammerer, Endocrinology and the Problem of Somatic Induction (2007)

unapi

Abstract In 1920, Eugen Steinach and Paul Kammerer reported experiments showing that exposure to high temperatures altered the structure of the gonad and produced hyper-sexuality in heat rats, presumably as a result of the increased production of sex hormones. Using Steinach's evidence that the gonad is a double gland with distinct sexual and generative functions, they used their findings to explain racial differences in the sexuality of indigenous tropical peoples and Europeans. The authors also reported that heat induced anatomical changes in the interstitial cells of the gonad were inherited by the heat rats' descendants. Kammerer used this finding to link endocrinology to his long-standing interest in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The heat rats supported his hypothesis that the interstitial cells of the double gland were the mechanism of somatic induction in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The Steinach--Kammerer collaboration, Kammerer's use of Steinach's puberty gland to explain somatic induction, and his endocrine analysis of symbiosis reveal Paul Kammerer's late career attempt to integrate endocrinology and genetics with the political ideals of Austrian socialism. With them he developed a bioethics that challenged the growing reliance on race in eugenics and instead promoted cooperation over competition in evolution. I relate his attempt to the controversies surrounding the interstitial cells, to the status of extra-nuclear theories of heredity, and to Kammerer's commitment to Austromarxist social reforms during the interwar period.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000773240/

Similar Citations

Book Logan, Cheryl A.; (2013)
Hormones, Heredity, and Race: Spectacular Failure in Interwar Vienna (/isis/citation/CBB001214620/)

Chapter Stoff, Heiko; (2008)
Verjüngungsrummel. Der Kampf um Wissenschaftlichkeit in den 1920er Jahren (/isis/citation/CBB001023677/)

Article Coen, Deborah R.; (2006)
Living Precisely in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (/isis/citation/CBB000671265/)

Book Sengoopta, Chandak; (2006)
The Most Secret Quintessence of Life: Sex, Glands, and Hormones, 1850--1950 (/isis/citation/CBB000641869/)

Article Gliboff, Sander; (2010)
Did Paul Kammerer Discover Epigenetic Inheritance? No and Why Not (/isis/citation/CBB001024796/)

Book Kammerer, Paul; (2003)
Environmental Vitalism: The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics (/isis/citation/CBB000471241/)

Book Müller-Wille, Staffan; Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg; (2012)
A Cultural History of Heredity (/isis/citation/CBB001251195/)

Book Susanne Lettow; (2014)
Reproduction, Race, and Gender in Philosophy and the Early Life Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB916714277/)

Article Tom Quick; (2020-03-18)
The Making of a New Race in the Early Twentieth Century Imperial Imaginary (/isis/citation/CBB351278938/)

Book Randi Hutter Epstein; (2018)
Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything (/isis/citation/CBB966154025/)

Authors & Contributors
Sengoopta, Chandak
Gliboff, Sander Joel
Epstein, Randi Hutter
Naoyuki 尚之 Soma 相馬
Lettow, Susanne
Taschwer, Klaus
Concepts
Biology
Sex hormones
Heredity
Endocrinology
Race
Medicine
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
21st century
Places
Vienna (Austria)
Germany
Austria
United States
Institutions
Institute of Experimental Biology (Vienna)
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment