An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

MIESCHER, Johann Friedrich

3 entries
  • 695

Ueber die chemische Zusammensetzung der Eiterzellen.

Med.-chem. Unters., Berlin, Heft 4, 441-60, 1871.

In 1869 Miescher discovered a substance which he termed nuclein (nucleoprotein), later shown to be the hereditary genetic material. He demonstrated it in pus cells. The discovery he first published in 1871. He was also first to suggest the existence of the genetic code (see Nature (Lond.), 1967, 215, 556).

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIOCHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Genetic Code, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Nucleic Acids
  • 11093

Die Spermatozoen einiger Wirbelthiere. Ein Beitrag zur Histochemie.

Verh. naturf. Ges. Basel, 6, 138-208, 1874.

Miescher first isolated DNA and identified it as an acid through chemical analysis of salmon spermatozoa.  See Ralf Dahm, "Discovering DNA: Friedrich Miescher and the early years of nucleic acid research," Human Genetics, 122 (2008) 565-581.



Subjects: BIOCHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Nucleic Acids
  • 11094

Die histochemischen und physiologischen Arbeiten. 2 vols.

Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1897.

In a letter to his uncle, the embryologist, Wilhelm His, written on December 17, 1892, and first published in this collected edition, Miescher described a kind of genetic code. He remarked how "some of the large molecules encountered in biology, composed of a repetition of a few similar but not identical small chemical pieces, could express all the right variety of the hereditary message, 'just as the words and concepts of all languages can find expression in twenty-four to thirty letters of the alphabet" (Judson, The eighth day of creation. Makers of the revolution in biology, p. 28). Miescher's letter to Wilhelm His was first published in vol. 1, pp. 116-17 of this work.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.



Subjects: BIOCHEMISTRY, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Genetic Code, BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY › Nucleic Acids, Collected Works: Opera Omnia