Annales Rodenses - Genetics and Cell Biology

A brief History of Rolduc Abbey
Rolduc is the name of a medieval Abbey in Kerkrade. Rolduc is now a hotel and congress centre; part of the
Abbey is a Roman Catholic Grand Seminary of the diocese Roermond. Walking through the premises of Rolduc
Abbey, one is surrounded by history: here religion, culture, learning and hospitality have gone hand in hand
since the 12th century. The imposing Abbey complex near the German border was founded in 1104, by
Ailbertus (Gilbert) of Antoing (Latin: Antonium; Antonius' estate) near Tournai (Doornik, Belgium). For
centuries Rolduc served as a monastery of the Regular Canons of Saint Augustin. The original chronicles (11041157) of Kloosterrade, or Rode-le-Duc, as it would
become known as in French from the 14th century
onward, have been written down in the "Annales
Rodenses", one of the oldest written historical
sources
in
the
Netherlands
(state
archives,
Maastricht). These were translated and expandend
upon until 1700 by Abbot Nicolaus Heyendal (Rolduc;
±1712-1733). Ailbertus initially erected, according to
the Annales Rodenses, a wooden chapel ‘capella ex
lignorum materia’. Three years afterwards, however,
this original sanctuary was torn down and replaced by
a structure that was made by laying ‘stone upon
stone’, allowing him to fulfill his wish to build a
monastery…
‘Anno adventus sui tertio erexit
sanctuarium ex materia lapidum de super lapidibus
obductum volens succedente sibi oportunitate
Annales Rodenses
consumare monasterium’.
Throughout the ensuing ages, successive Abbots added to the original stone structure, and the Abbey expanded
to its current size. After the Napoleontic wars Rolduc became a renowned boarding school, housing secondary
and grammar school students. Since its construction 900 years before, the wooden chapel became the largest
Abbey complex of the Benelux.
Rolduc from the south-east; painted by Hendrik Kettner (±1830, publ. centrum Rolduc
Early History of Rolduc: Kloosterrade (Klosterrath)
The area where Rolduc and later the church-town of Kerkrade were founded was
situated close to old Celtic travel and trade routes in northern Europe. These
roads were rebuilt by the Romans in the 1st century BC and ran from Colonia
Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Cologne) to Gesoriacum (Boulogne; via Belgica)
and from Aquisgranum (Aachen) to Colonia Traiana (Xanten), and locally
connected Trajectum ad Mosam (Maastricht) with Coriovallum (Heerlen) via a
several cross roads.
The Augustinian Abbey Rolduc, originally called Kloosterrade, was founded in 1104
by a priest called Ailbertus of Antoing. Ailbertus´ was dissatisfied with the lack of
discipline in the collegiate church at Tournai, where he had been introduced to
priesthood. Ailbertus strongly believed in leading a simple, more virtuous and
solitary life in absolute poverty and devoted to God. He had a dream, a revelation of
a new cloister where he could live, and of the location place where to build it.
Accompanied by two brothers, Thyemo en Walgerus, he headed 150 km eastbound,
where the pilgrims were welcomed by Adelbert, Count of Saffenberg from Mayschoß
an der Ahr (in the German Eifel), owner of the castle in Herzogenrath (Germany).
Ailbertus made a plea to the Count to grant him his wish of building his shrine in an
opening in the forests, which according to legend, was already known as sacred
land. He offered them this strip of land on which they built a wooden chapel.
The Abbey was originally called Kloosterrade, which later became
’sHertogenrade (French: Rode-le-Duc or Rolduc), after the ducal
castle that was built across the river Wurm. The name “Rade” or
“Rode” refers to a clearing in the landscape where the original
vegetation (heather, trees) had been removed (i.e. for agricultural
or other purposes). The soil was fertile and, in addition, the friars
had access to wood and stone for construction, and to clean, fresh
water, an important asset in times of infectious diseases. The
location was situated close to a trade route, and was therefore
assured of visitors, and thus a perfectly situated pilgrimage. The
old Roman roads are still there, albeit 8 ft. below ground level.
Ailbertus’ pious deeds did not go unnoticed: in 1106 the nobleman Embrico of Mayschoß joined the community
with his wife Adeleida and his children Heriman and Margeretha. Embrico was a wealthy subject of Count
Saffenberg, who came from the valley of the Ahr. Embrico bestowed all his worldly possessions on the
community. Between 1106 and 1108, Ailbertus and Embrico built the crypt, which was later to become the
foundation of the Abbey. On the 13th of December 1108, the feast day of St Lucia, the church of Rolduc was
dedicated to the Holy Virgin and the Archangel Gabriel in a ceremony led by the Bishop of Liège.
In the years that followed, a dispute arose between Ailbertus and
Embrico on how the monastery should develop. Embrico wanted to
use the financial resources of the community to expand the
monastery buildings, whilst it was Ailbertus’ wish to spend the funds
on assisting the poor. Embrico was also keen to develop the
monastery as a double house or mixed community. Ailbertus however
desired to keep the sexes strictly separate. Thus, Ailbertus left the
monastery in 1111. He died in Sechtem near Bonn (Germany) in
1122. His wish to be laid to rest in Kloosterrade was finally fulfilled in
1895: believed to be those of Ailbertus, his remains were transferred
to Rolduc Abbey and placed in a sarcophagus in the crypt he
himself and Embrico built.
Kloosterrade later became the resting place for its Dukes. The cenotaph of Walram III can be found
in the nave of the church. Castle Mayschoß provided protection for inhabitants of the monastery
throughout the ages: a 3-4 km underground escape route connected Rolduc to the ducal castle.
11th century Genetics
Genetics in the old days, i.e. knowledge on the existence of life and
reproduction, was fairly straight forward, or was it? Many pre-Aristotelian
Greek philosophers had spent deep thoughts on how to explain the repeated
emergence of life from sources other than seeds, eggs or parents, and
especially on the theoretical principles that supported any such phenomena.
One of the prevailing ideas was that, brought together by two forces: Love
and Strife, in the right mixture the joining of four essential classical
elements: earth, fire, water and air, explained the existence of everything
living and non-living. This cosmogenic theory, originated form Empedokles
(±490-430 BC). These thoughts had crystallized into the doctrine of
Generatio Spontanea (abiogenesis): i.e. life routinely emerges from non-living matter, without the need for a
‘çausal agent’ (i.e. a parent). The idea was that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise from inanimate matter
such as dust, maggots from dead flesh, the seasonal generation of mice and other animals, like eels, from the
mud of the Nile. The theory of the four elements became the standard dogma for the next two thousand years.
With Plato’s (±427-347 BC) and later Aristotle’s (±384-322 BC) teachings, it became
accepted that nature in its ‘physical’ appearance, is governed by concepts like ‘Physis’
(‘movement’ of elements precipitating into From), ‘Archai’ (a primeval concept, which
assumed a single principle material substance as a starting point: water; water embodied
the basis of nature and the nature of matter, living or non-living) and ‘Apeiron’ (the
unlimited ability of opposing principles, particularly wet/dry, heat/cold, to cause visible
movement, i.e. growth and development, but also decomposition). Forms in nature are
repeated over and over again, because nature comprises a static (albeit extensive)
collection of fixed designs. Yet transitions are possible: the changeover of a cuckoo in summertime to a hawk in
winter is as acceptable as the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The soul, by its very nature,
participates in the Form of Life, which means the soul can never die. Maintenance of characteristics between
generations is ‘recollection’, restated as knowledge of the Forms in soul before birth in the body. Humankind
shares essential forms of soul or ‘psyche’ (which separates living from non-living matter) with plants (i.e.
vegetative psyche; controls feeding) and with animals (i.e. animal psyche; enables sensory perception), but
surpasses these life forms, because humans have the ability to reason (i.e. rational psyche).
Plato considered reasoning more valuable than observation, as
sensory perception was misleading, he contended. Aristotle didn’t
take kindly to experimentation either, on the premise that it disturbs
the natural course of things and therefore obscures the truth. He
reasoned and taught while walking about (Peripatetic school) - he
who could keep up, had access to the truth… quite literally…
Both Plato and Aristotle and their successor in teaching, Claudius Galenus (±129-201 AD),
arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, had adopted a single
guiding principle: living things develop by ‘Entelechy’, a common purposive and organizing field.
Moreover, these Greek philosophers had developed a monotheistic line of thought. Entelechy, in
essence, was sufficiently equivalent to the Christian concept of God. It would appear that
Galenus may have also read a few books of the Old Testament. Hence, early Christianity
willingly adopted the ancient Greek philosophy on the existence of life forms. The influence of
Greek science declined in the period after the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century AD) until
the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches (11th century AD). As
the dominant view of by some Christian theologians, however, continued to be in favor of
Generatio Spontanea, this concept remained unchallenged. Augustine of Hippo (±354–430
AD), viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers in Western Christianity and patron of
Augustinians, discussed spontaneous generation in his “The City of God” and “The Literal
Meaning of Genesis”. Saint Augustine, in fact, cited Biblical passages such as "Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life" as pronouncements that would enable
ongoing creation. As a result, Aristotles’ and Galenus’ philosophies dominated well past the
medieval era, and development of Biology came to a virtual stand-still for 15 centuries.
Late Medieval Rolduc
Following the departure of Ailbertus in 1111, the community at Rode was leaderless and the brotherhood
searched for a new superior. It was in the monastery of Rottenbuch in Bavaria that Kloosterrade finally found a
suitable leader by the name of Richer. When he arrived at Rode, he introduced the rule of life of his former
community in Bavaria and the monastery became an order of Augustinian Canons, which followed the rule of
Saint Augustine (±354–430 AD; bishop of Hippo in North Africa). Richer died in
1122 and was succeeded in quick succession by several appointed abbots who
experienced “problems with monastic discipline”. In 1136 the land of Rode,
including the Abbey, fell into the hands of the Duchy of Limburg. This period
was characterized by an expansion of the buildings and the founding of various
sister communities, including the Marienthal monastery in the valley of
Germany (this was done to divide the community in purely male and female
branch). Abbot Erpo (1142-1178) however insisted on installing eight nuns at
Rolduc, believing them to be better housekeepers than the men….
During the 12th century and 13th century the Abbey flourished. In 1250 the Abbey owned more than 3,000
hectares of land. The Abbey sent its canons to various places in present-day Netherlands, Germany and
Belgium to serve there as parish-priests and several other communities were founded by Kloosterrade:
Marienthal in the Ahr valley of the Eifel (Ge), Sinnich near Aubel (Be) and Hooidonk near Eindhoven (NL). Five
communities in Friesland were placed under the authority of the Abbot of Kloosterrade, the most important of
these being the Abbey of Ludingakerke.
As early as 1123, the Abbey had a monastic school for
the training of its own canons. Two novices, disgruntled
by the strictness of their teacher even set fire to the
buildings which meant that the canons were without a
roof over their heads. Many left for Salzburg. In 1130,
the choir was built above the crypt, followed by the
transept in 1138 and the tree-aisled nave (the main
body of the church) in 1143.
They were originally covered
with a thatched roof and
eventually replaced by a roof
of tiles. In 1209 the church
was dedicated to the Annunciation and to St. Peter. The crypt was extended in 1224
with three sets of columns underneath the transept. Kloosterrade’s fame grew in the
middle ages and the Abbey became a religious and ecclesiastical center for the Duchy
of Limburg.
The first years of the 14th century were
marked by adversity in northern Europe,
culminating in the Great Famine of 1315–17.
The Great Famine was bounded in the south
by the Alps and the Pyrenees. One of the
causes of the Great Famine was the
transition from the Medieval Warm Period to
the Little Ice Age, which left the population
vulnerable when bad weather caused crop
failures. The years 1313–14 and 1317–21
were excessively rainy throughout Europe,
resulting in widespread crop failures. Thus
the climate change was accompanied by an
economic downturn. In a society where the
final recourse for all problems had been religion and where Roman Catholicism was the only tolerated faith, no
amount of prayer seemed effective against the causes of the famine, undermining the institutional authority of
the Catholic Church: the failure of prayer was blamed upon corruption within the church.
These hardships were followed in 1347 by the Black Death that would
spread throughout Europe during the following three years. The death
toll was estimated at 35 million people in Europe, about one-third of its
population. Towns were particularly hard-hit because of their crowded
conditions. Large areas of land were left sparsely inhabited, and fields
remained unworked. Landlords attempted to entice the few available
workers to their fields with higher wages. Lower rents and lower
demand for food both cut into agricultural income. Urban workers felt
they also had a right to a higher income and popular uprisings broke
out across Europe. Conditions were further unsettled by the return of
the plague throughout the remainder of the 14th century; it continued
to strike Europe periodically during the rest of the Middle Ages.
The 14th, 15th and 16th centuries marked a period of decline for
Rolduc and the trend continued until the arrival of Abbot Leonard Dammerscheidt in 1522. Monastic discipline
had all but disappeared, the buildings had become ramshackle and the Abbey lacked funds. Dammerscheidt
introduced a number of changes, restoring the Abbey buildings (including a new presbytery in late-Gothic style)
and he managed the Abbey finances much more prudently. Still, restoring monastic discipline proved more
complicated than anticipated…
Rolduc hit on hard times during the Eighty
Year War between Spain and the Dutch
Republic; the Abbey was plundered and burnt
on many occasions. Nevertheless there were
interspersed periods of relative rest. Abbot
Balduinus van Horpusch (1614-1635) built the
clock tower at the western end of the church.
This brief period of prosperity was directly
related to the revenue generated by coalmining.
The Peace of Westphalia signed in 1648 marked
the beginnings of an uneasy peace between
Catholic Spain and the ‘union of
protestant states’ in the Netherlands, and a period of stability in Europe, after a religious
conflict between Protestants and Catholics had divided Europe for nearly thirty years. This clash
eventually also rekindled the France–Habsburg rivalry (the Kingdom of France vs the House
of Habsburg; this territorial conflict would rear its ugly head again in the early 20 th century,
giving rise to WWI).
The Dutch General Assembly of States tried confiscate Rolduc, but this was successfully rebuffed by Abbot
Winand Lamberti (1650-1664). At the time Rolduc was situated in the Lands of Overmaas, which comprised:
the County of Valkenburg, the Dominion of
Hertogenrade (Herzogenrath) and the County of
Dalhem. Overmaas was a hodgepodge of enclaves
divided between Catholic Spain and the Protestant
General Assembly of States in the Netherlands. In
1661 a Partition Treaty was signed to re-divide the
territories. Rolduc was situated in an area which
was assigned to Catholic Spain. Because of Abbot
Lamberti's role in saving the Abbey and the Lands
of Rolduc from destruction by the protestant
armies, he was rewarded with an entitlement to
wear a bishop's mitre, cross and staff for his
efforts, although he was only an abbot…
Thus, the Abbey began to prosper again in the late 17th century when revenue was generated from the
exploitation of coal mines. Abbot Petrus Melchiores van de Steghe (1667-1682) added the new abbot’s quarters
in so-called Maasland Renaissance style as a west wing to the north side of the Abbey. Abbots Heyendal (17121733) and Rauwschaw (1733-1745) ensured that Rolduc continued to flourish in political and economic terms.
Mining activities around Kerkrade
The municipality of Kerkrade is one of Europe’s oldest coal-mining
towns. It served as an important coal-mining centre from 1113
until 1974, when the mines were finally closed. The Nulland
mining shaft, the last mining shaft closed, is a lasting testimony
to the mining activities that seized to exist in Limburg when oil and
gas
became
cheaper
alternatives to coal. Coal
had
brought
relative
prosperity
and
thus
people to Limburg: the
originally mostly rural
population in the south
of Limburg would increase more than ten-fold. At its heyday, the
mines provided work for ±55.000 people; when they closed 45.000
became unemployed.
Large deposits of coal in the area around Kerkrade date back to
the Carboniferous ("coal-bearing era”), a geologic period that
extends from the late Devonian Period (±360 Ma ago) to the
early Permian Period (±300 Ma ago). The Devonian period marks the
beginning of extensive land colonization by plants. With large
herbivorous land-animals not yet present, large forests could grow
and shape the landscape. The Permian witnessed the diversification of
the early amniotes into the ancestral groups of the mammals, turtles,
lepidosaurs (which later became lizards) and archosaurs (gave rise to
i.a. birds and crocodilians). The world in those days was dominated
by a single supercontinent known as Pangaea surrounded by a global
ocean called Panthalassa.
Around Kerkrade coal layers
breached the surface; coal was initially quarried by so-called ‘day mining’
(surface mining). To exploit the vast coal deposits at deeper layers,
horizontal mining corridors and vertical shaft mining were initiated already
in the late medieval period.
In 1742 a unique decision was taken to undertake coal-mining operations at
Rolduc and the revenue generated by the Abbey mines, brought about
further building activities, including a stone floor in the presbytery and
stucco work carried out by plasterers from Liege in the crypt. The name of
abbot Joan Fabritius (1745-1757) is synonymous with the east wing of the
Abbey complex which overlooks the Worm valley. He commissioned Joseph
Moretti, a Aachen-based architect from Milan, to design this wing and
construction lasted from 1754 to 1757. It includes the Rococo library.
Around 1775, Rolduc employed 350 mineworkers. The last two abbots
(Haghen, 1751-1781 and Chaineux 1782-1800) were primarily concerned
with economic affairs, in particular coal-mining activities. It was Chaineux
who instigated plans for the farmstead to the south west of the complex
which were finished in 1794.
A short History of Genetics from the 12th to the 20th Century
In between experiencing visions and enduring migraines, Abbess Hildegard
von Bingen (±1098–1179 AD) founded multiple cloisters and brilliantly set
the ongoing battles between virtues and vices to medieval music that we
still enjoy to this day. She proffered her insights on human reproduction,
which were bestowed upon her by the Holy Mother:
embryos formed inside a woman much like curdling
produces cheese from milk. It would take many centuries
before Louis Pasteur once and for all would disprove the
deeply rooted concept of Generations Spontanea.
Hippocrates had suggested that transfer of properties from one generation to the next,
occurred by unidentified particles (later called pangenesis by Charles Darwin) that originated
from all parental body parts and were collected into fluids that were exchanged during sex.
That is, the hereditary material consists of physical material (as opposed to a blueprint). He
postulated that elements from all parts of the body became concentrated in male semen and then formed into a
human in the womb. In fact, he also believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristic. Artistotle disagreed:
although he recognized that offspring often resembles their forebears, he had also noted that heritable traits
sometimes skipped a generation. Twenty-three centuries later Darwin (1809-1882) follows Hippocrates’
reasoning, but also argues that these heritable elements, which he calls gemmulae, do not necessarily express
themselves. Mind you, although the concept of heritable traits had been steadily taking shape throughout
preceding ages, it would take approximately 100 years more, well into the 20th century, before DNA and genes
were established as the carriers of heritable information.
During the 13th century, Aristotle reached his greatest acceptance. With the availability of
Latin translations Saint Albertus Magnus and his student, Saint Thomas of Aquino, who
revered Aristotle, referring to him as "the Philosopher”, elevated Aristotles’ legacy to its
greatest prominence. Philosophers who deviated from Heavenly Wisdom were put away as
pagans: "falling short of the true and proper wisdom to be found in Christian revelation”…
Until well into the 18th century two rivaling philosophies on
inheritance existed: offspring were either already present in the
germ or were formed and shaped successively. The former
viewpoint, passionately proclaimed by the Preformationists, argued that all adult
features are present in the germ (“like generates like”); only unfolding and growth
were required of what had been created long before. Nonetheless, two apparently
irreconcilable schools of thought kept tempers churning among these animalculists
for quite some time: spermists, among whom the Dutch contemporaries Nicolaas
Hartsoeker (1656-1725) and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), had convinced
themselves that homunuculi could be seen folded-up inside sperm. The term
spermatozoon, "seed animals”, remains a distance reference to this preformationist
thought.
Paracelsus (1493-1541) in his “De natura rerum” (1537), had even outlined a
method to spawn humans from putrefied sperm kept
inside a sealed curcubit: placed inside a horse’s womb,
provided that it was nourished with the enigmatic arcanum of human blood for 40
weeks, it would eventually stir and move. Yet others in those days dismissed
spermatozoa as parasites, indeed…
Ovists (ex ovo omnia), on the other hand, insisted that the
future human pre-existed inside the egg, and that sperm merely
stimulated its growth. Besides, surely the Creator would not
permit all those little human beings inside sperm go to waste a
single embrace. William Harvey (1578-1657) and Marcello
Malpighi (1628-1694) were avid proponents of the “egg has it
all” theorem. Clearly, religion made a heavy mark on the
thinking at the time.
Epigenesis (neoformism) determinedly opposed preformationism, believing that parts of the offspring are
gradually produced from an undifferentiated mass by successive steps and stages during which new parts are
added. Support for this view came from detailed observation and description of the development of the
fertilized egg. Epigenesis would win the race ultimately.
In the meanwhile, the world was quite literally expanding in the 15th and
16th centuries: new continents are discovered and earth is no longer
considered flat. Biological thinking in the late 16 early 17th centuries is
dominated by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and René Descartes (15961650). Galileo makes significant astronomical discoveries, among which
that the earth revolves around the sun instead of it being the center of the
universe. Together they contend that the book of nature is written in
mathematical symbols and equations and that everything can be
measured, and there is no such thing as distinct heavenly and earthly laws
(laws of uniformity). Slowly but gradually philosophy becomes detached
from religious-mystical doctrines. Scientific rationalism is born: “dubito
ergo cogito” says Descartes, and “cogito ergo sum”. Never accept anything
to be true, if its essence has not been studied from all possible objective perspectives. The capacity to think
independently becomes essential to the human condition.
The microscope was first developed around 1590, some 40 years before Antoni van
Leeuwenhoek for the first time described cells (erythrocytes) and saw his tiny humans
inside sperm cells. Thanks to the expertise of numerous Dutch and German spectacle and
lens makers, the instrument evolved from rudimentary single lens to progressively more
sophisticated double lens optical systems. Hans Lippershey (1570-1619), filed the first
known patent for a telescope in 1608. Father and son team Zaccharis and Hans Janssen
(1585/1632) have been accredited with inventing the microscope; Galileo developed Janssens’ invention into
the telescope. Marcello Malpighi, the brothers Constantijn jr (1628-1697) and Christiaan
Huygens (1629-1695), Hooke (1635-1703) and Swammerdam (1637-1694) all contributed
to the further development of the microscope. Later Joseph Jackson Lister (1786-1869),
British physicist and optician improved lens-making and built instruments using 2
lenses; this removed blurriness and distortions. The development and perfection of
microscopy heralds an important new era in biology, as it revealed a new micro-world of
cells and their fine structures within. It paved the way for scientific observation at a level
which had not been possible before and laid the foundation for new ways of thinking.
Thanks to the refinement of microscopy, German botanists Matthias Schleiden
(1804-1881) and Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) discover that like plants,
animals are built from cells. As neither one of them knew where these cells
came from, they suggested cells simply crystallized from the fluid in organisms.
While studying cancers from patients, Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) realizes,
however that tumors arise from a single cell, which divided over and over again.
This brought forth a formidable leap of insight: Virchow saw this was true for all
cells in the body: each living cell originates from another living cell –
Omnis cellula e cellula.
Up until Nehemia Grew (1641-1712; given his labapparel, it should probably be considered fortunate that
Robert Bunsen would not invent his burner until 1852)
understands that pollen plays the role of the male
element in fertilization, and thus that plants also
reproduce sexually, procreation in plants and animals
had been considered quite different. Experimental support also comes from hybridplant experiments by Joseph Kölreuter (1733-1806), who found that independent of
which parent species supplied the "male seed" (pollen) or the female "seed" (ovules),
the resulting hybrids always looked the same. How, he asked, could these results be
explained on the basis of preformation of a plan inside the male or female seed?
Preformation as a concept, was crumbling at its base…
In the meanwhile, classification of biological life forms had become somewhat of
a popular pastime in the 18th century. The devotion of two gentlemen to these
matters stood out: Linnaeus and Buffon. In his first edition of Systema naturae
(1735), Linnaeus (born: Carl from Linné; 1707-1778), established the beginnings
of the modern system of kingdoms, classes, genera, in addition to a binomial
system of nomenclature (genus + species) for plants and animals. The 10th edition
of Systema naturae (1758) presented a systematic classification of over 4000
animal species. It is thanks to his endeavors that we call
ourselves Homo sapiens. Linnaeus believed in the biblical
account of creation: once created, species remained
fixed and immutable.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788), on
the other hand, saw nature in a constant state of change
and maintained that more gradual transitions
(mutations) between species and even individual
organisms were possible. Buffon was the first to suggest
the possibility that all animals might have descended
from a single breeding pair. Driving force, in his perception, however was devolution:
animals over time fell off by degrees from their originally perfect state. Notwithstanding,
Darwin later praised him as the first person to treat evolutionary ideas “in a scientific
spirit”. Buffon rejected Linnaeus’ ideas with abundant public disdain. Linnaeus retaliated
by cataloging an ugly toad (Bufo bufo) and a genus of particularly smelly plants (Buffonia
sp.) in Buffons´ honor... Differences in religious beliefs remain a reliable recipe for trouble
to this day…
On the topic of evolution, Lamarck (born: Jean-Baptiste Pierre
Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck; 1744-1829) is usually
associated with the inheritance of acquired features from one
generation to the next. Per example, a common ancestor of camels
and giraffe at one point stretched its neck to be able to reach the
highest leaves – this feature was then transmitted to its offspring,
an almost Hippocratean viewpoint. Despite this erroneous
perspective on the origins of life forms, Lamarck
was the first one to propose a comprehensive
theory of evolution. The traveling naturalists
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Alfred Russell
Wallace (1823-1913) are accredited with
proposing most significant mechanism for
evolution: natural selection. Change (mutation)
would be viewed as a function of heritable
transmission and adaptation to environment. It
should be noted, however, that both Lamarckism
and Darwinism challenged the literal biblical account of creation.
The findings by Virchow and observations made by of Louis Pasteur (182295) would finally overturn the quite resilient idea of spontaneous generation.
Pasteur, among many other findings, proved that maggots grew from eggs,
not from rotting flesh. Cells and flies thus both had to come from preexisting organisms.
This concept provided a novel starting point for investigation of embryonic
development and of the structure of plants and animal bodies. The law of
biogenesis, attributed to Louis Pasteur, is the observation that living
things come only from other living things, Omne vivum ex vivo,
by reproduction.
His experiments won Pasteur the Alhumbert Prize (2,500 francs), which the
French Academy of Sciences would award to whoever was able to
experimentally prove or disprove the doctrine of Generatio Spontanea.
Two crucial perceptions — hybridization and the cell theory — were to form the basis for Gregor Mendels’
research.
The history of modern genetics takes flight with the work of the Augustinian
friar Gregor (born Johann) Mendel (1822-1884). Mendel was fortunate that the
monastery of Brno (Czech republic) was run by an Abbot who encouraged intellectual
and scientific pursuits. It was against this backdrop that Mendel became interested in
biology. The regional Bishop, however, apparently considered the monasteries’
emphasis on scholarship over prayer as bordering on nonspiritual rebellion. His
discovery that Mendel was breeding albino with pigmented mice in his own cell, no
less, led to strong objections under the premise that “watching mice having sex may
cause unnecessary temptations…”. As part of a compromise, the mice had to move,
the peas stayed. It is said that Mendel later jested: “you see, the bishop did not
understand that plants also have sex”…
His famous studies on heritable traits in pea plants was published in 1866, in the Proceedings of the
Natural History Society of Brünn (indeed, it still doesn’t have much of an impact factor these days) described
what came to be known as Mendelian Inheritance. This concept brought together 2 generalizing laws on
heritability: the Law of Segregation states that each offspring receives its own pair of alleles of the gene for
that trait by inheriting sets of homologous chromosomes from the parent organisms; the Law of Independent
Assortment states that separate genes for separate traits are passed independently of one another from
parents to offspring. Mendels’ Law of Dominance, his 3rd
law, states that recessive alleles will always be masked
by dominant alleles. Mendel sent about 40 reprints of his
work to biologists throughout Europe, including Darwin.
The fact that his work wouldn’t be fully recognized until
1900 was later attributed to the inference that the
scientific community just wasn’t ready yet to comprehend
the novelty and implications of his work.
In this light, the often heard statement that Hugo de Vries (1848-1935), Carl
Correns (1864-1933) and Erich Tschermack von Seysenegg (1871-1962)
independently rediscovered Mendel’s laws of inheritance is actually a misnomer.
They in fact exposed modern science to Mendel - 1900 was the year in which
Mendel was finally appreciated. Around the same time, the English biologist
William Bateson reads de Vries’ reference to Mendels’ work and realizes Mendels’
Laws lay the foundations for and entirely new science of heredity. Bateson
becomes a fervent advocate of this new science. He translates Mendel into
English and dubs the new field “genetics,” a term already in use but in the vague
sense as something pertaining to origins. He also introduces the terms allele,
zygote, heterozygote, and homozygote and goes on to show that, indeed, ‘things’
pretty much work the same in mice as in peas. Botanist Wilhelm Johannsen
(1857-1927) coins the word "gene" in reference to De Vries’ “particles of
heredity” cq Darwins’ “gemmulae”, and invents the terms “genotype” &
“phenotype”.
The serendipitous discovery of cellular dyes and
their usefulness in microscopy by Joseph von Gerlach (1820-1896) literally
provided a new look at cells as it visualized nuclei and membranes. Walter
Flemming (1843-1905) observed that nuclei contained thick threadlike
structures that were split up when a cell divided. These chromosomes
(“coloured bodies”) came in pairs: humans had 23 pairs, dogs 39 and flies only 4.
The fact that their numbers varied between different species was an early
indication as to their potential role in heredity.
Oscar Hertwig (1849-1922) observes that fertilization by sperm brings a new
nucleus into the egg, which then fuses with the eggs own nucleus. Wilhelm Roux
(1850-1924) and August Weismann (1834-1914) figure out what this means for
heredity: fertilization combines chromosomes from each parent. Trying to pull these observations into a single
theory, Weismann proposes that reproductive germ cells are kept separate from other cells; this notion also
explained why acquired traits during an organisms’ life time were not passed along to offspring (Hippocrates).
Around the turn of 19th century, Walter Sutton (1877–1916) and Theodor Boveri
(1862–1915) independently high-light the importance of chromosomes as
potential carries of hereditary information (Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory).
Boveri and his wife Marcella discover centrosomes and show that a sea urchin
will not develop properly unless all of its chromosomes are present. Sutton proves
that chromosomes in grasshoppers occur in matched pairs of maternal and
paternal chromosomes. As these separate during meiosis, he reasons that
chromosomes likely constitute the physical representation of Mendelian laws of
inheritance.
As to the nature of the material that carried
heritable information there was great confusion: chromosomes were known
to contain both protein and nuclei acid. Friedrich Miescher (1844–1895), a
Swiss born physician, had isolated phosphate-rich chemicals from white
blood cells nuclei some 30 years earlier, which he called nuclein (nucleic
acids). The significance of his discovery (1871) would become apparent only
much later. Chromosomes were known to consist of both protein and
nuclein. Their higher complexity, comprising 23 different building units
(amino acids), initially gave proteins the benefit of the doubt over nucleic
acids (which contained merely 4 different nucleotides), as to being the possible vectors of genetic information.
The British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith (1877–1941), who studied the epidemiology and pathology of
bacterial pneumonia, reported in 1928, the first widely accepted demonstration of bacterial transformation:
Some "transforming principle" in the pneumococcal bacterium could distinctly change its form and function.
Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, and Maclyn McCarty, proved in 1944 that it was DNA that caused bacterial
transformation and that thus DNA was likely the genetic material of the chromosome, not its protein; the issue
was settled decisively when Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase showed in 1952 that when bacteriophages, which
are composed of DNA and protein, infect bacteria, their DNA enters the bacterial host cell, most of their protein
does not.
Erwin Chargaff (1905–2002) had discovered two rules that proved instrumental in the
elucidation the double helix structure of DNA. The first rule: in natural DNA the number of
guanine units equals the number of cytosine units and the number of adenine units equals
the number of thymine units. This strongly hinted towards the base pair makeup of the
DNA. Chargaff's second rule: the composition of DNA varies from one species to another,
in particular in the relative amounts of A, G, T, and C bases. Such evidence of molecular
diversity between species made DNA a more credible candidate for the genetic
material than protein. Rosalind Elsie Franklins’ (1920–1958) pioneering work on X-ray
diffraction images of DNA made critical contributions to the understanding of the fine
molecular structures of DNA. James Watson and Francis Crick put two and two together...
… and the rest is history…
Further reading:
History-Genetics
www.worldheritage.org
colorado.edu/History-Genetics - History of Genetics, 2010; G. Carey
books.google.nl - Genetic Engineering: Manipulating the Mechanisms of Life, 2009; R. Hodge
wikipedia.org/Portal:Science
Present-day Rolduc
In 1796 the complex was overrun by French troops, the cannons were forced to leave the
Abbey. The Abbey was dissolved by the French in 1796 and the buildings were put up for
public auction; Rolduc stood empty for 35 years. The Abbey was bought back by the canons
(Kruyder en Simon Pieter Ernst), but because they were no longer allowed to use it for its
original function they decided to share the goods between them.
In 1815, when the Kingdom of the Netherlands was established, the border was drawn
through the ancient land of Rode, separating the Abbey from the castle. The eastern part
(including the castle) became Prussian Herzogenrath and the western part (including the
Abbey) became part of the Dutch municipality of Kerkrade. The Abbey had fallen into disrepair
for a quarter of a century before eventually passing into the hands of the Bishop of Liege in
1819, but only due to the approval of King William I of the Netherlands.
In the 19th century Rolduc became a famous
boarding school run by Jesuits, and a seminary
of the Diocese of Roermond. Many influential
Dutch Roman Catholics, e.g. the writer Lodewijk
van Deyssel and the social reformer Alphons
Ariëns, were educated at Rolduc. Between 1971
and 1990 all buildings were thoroughly restored.
The former Abbey now houses a secondary
school. The over 900 year old complex of Rolduc
Abbey is currently in use as a hotel, hostel,
conference centre and offers houses, office
spaces, private practices and several educational
institutions, among which the Charlemagne
College (formerly College Rolduc) and the
Roman Catholic Major Seminary of the Diocese of Roermond.
Rolduc Abbey currently is the largest national monument of the Netherlands and is one of the best preserved
Abbeys in Europe; it is one of the most important religious monuments in the “Limburg” region and one of the
Top 100 UNESCO monuments in The Netherlands. Rolduc aims to preserve and maintain the monumental
complex for the benefit of the inhabitants and of the community in general.
Text: history Rolduc: C Scholtens (ROLDUC), adapted: JW Voncken
history Genetics: JW Voncken (Maastricht University)