Genetics and Medicine in Great Britain 1600 to 1939

About the Book

For centuries, physicians observed that certain disorders were hereditary: they “ran in the family.” Genetics and Medicine is the first comprehensive historical study to examine the close professional relationship between British scientists studying the nature of heredity and the practicing physicians of the day. In the 17th century, scientists and physician members of the Royal Society investigated the interaction of human heredity and disease. The biologists Charles Darwin and Francis Galton both had medical training and worked closely with physicians during the 19th century to define specific patterns of inheritance for a variety of inherited disorders. The application of Gregor Mendel’s theory of heredity after 1900 by the geneticist William Bateson and the statistician Karl Pearson furthered the close collaboration between scientists and physicians during the decades before World War II that has defined the present-day understanding of the scope of modern “medical” genetics.

About the Author

The author, Alan R. Rushton, M.D., Ph.D., has practiced Pediatrics and Medical Genetics at Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington, New Jersey since 1980. He completed his professional education at the University of Chicago and Yale University, and has served on the faculty of Princeton University, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and the Medical University of the Americas. Dr. Rushton is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Royal Society of Medicine (London). In 1994, he published Genetics and Medicine in the United States 1800-1922. Another work, titled Royal Maladies: Inherited Diseases in the Ruling Houses of Europe, was published in 2008.