Herman J. Muller (1890-1967)

Hermann J. Muller, Morris High School, the Bronx

Hermann J. Muller was born December 21, 1890 in New York City. He grew up in what was at that time known as German-Irish Harlem and attended Morris High School, the first public high school in New York City in the Bronx. As a child his father often took him to the Museum of Natural History, and he would later remember that the exhibit of fossils showing the evolution of horses' feet had an enormous impact upon him and his desire to become a scientist. He attended Columbia University thanks to his high score on a city-wide exam, where he began studying biology, focusing his work on the new science of genetics.

At Columbia Muller had the opportunity to work in the laboratory of Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the most important figures in the history of genetics. At the time biologists were trying to figure out how changes take place as species evolve and were particularly interested in the "rediscovery" (in 1900) of Mendel's Laws. Mendel was a Monk living in what is today Austria, who in 1866 published a landmark study on inheritance in pea plants. Though Mendel's work was ignored for over three decades, his study is today recognized as the beginning of genetics.

In Morgan's lab Muller and his colleagues worked with the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to study the inheritance of mutations. What they realized was that mutations occur randomly, and if the mutation increases an organisms chances of survival in a given in environment it will be preserved and maintained as a feature of future generations. Among the reasons they studied fruit flies is that they have very short life spans, allowing researchers to study several generations in a short period of time. They also found that when they bred them in large populations the flies produced an unusually large number of mutations for them to study. Because of their interest in Drosophila Morgan's lab was known as "the fly room."

Drosophila melanogaster

Morgan and his students soon became renowned for their work, however the bitter rivalry Muller felt with his fellow students--particularly Calvin Bridges and Alfred Sturtevant--would stick with him till the rest of his life.

 Morgan and his students, January 2, 1919. Muller is second from right in back.

Despite Muller's bitter feelings he would still go on to become Morgan's most famous student, for reasons described the Significance section of this portfolio. In the meanwhile, along with his interest in genetics, Muller was also developing keen interests in eugenics and socialism. Eugenics is basically defined as the science of human breeding. Eugenics still exists today in the form of birth control, genetic testing of the unborn, artificial insemination etc. However in the early 20th century eugenicists tended to advocate more radical--and according to our current way of thinking, often offensive--measures. These ranged from, in the U.S., involuntary sterilization of mental hospital patients and prison inmates, limits on immigration to the U.S. from countries (such as Africa, southeastern Europe, Latin America, Asia) regarded as "racially inferior."

Muller's views on eugenics were heavily influenced by his enthusiasm for socialism and Marxist philosophy. He believed that the capitalist system in the U.S. was "dysgenic" (i.e. made humans worse than they would otherwise be) because it was exploitive. He visited the Soviet Union in 1922 to bring over the first samples of fruit flies to help begin building Soviet genetics, and was anxious to return. Muller believed that it would only be in a country like the USSR where scientific research was more greatly valued by the government, and the economic playing field had been leveled to create opportunities for all, that a successful eugenics program could be implemented. Muller finally got his chance to test his ideas in 1934 when he immigrated to the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately for Muller his adventures in the Soviet Union turned out nothing like he had planned. First, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was not a supporter of eugenics. Even worse, Muller's time in the USSR coincided with the rise of Trofim D. Lysenko, an agronomist who claimed genetics was "fascist" science. Lysenko's growing influence in Soviet biology would result in a ban on genetics in the Soviet Union after 1948. In the meanwhile, Muller was forced to flee the Soviet Union to avoid Stalin's wrath in 1937.

T.D. Lysenko

 Joseph Stalin

 After Muller returned to the United States he ended up teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington where he remained for the rest of his career. After he won the Nobel Prize in 1946 he became famous as a geneticist and specialist on radiation. Radiation was a topic of great concern to many in the U.S. during the Cold War due to the atomic bomb tests and nuclear arms race being conducted with the Soviet Union. Muller, however, was actually far more concerned with the use of x-rays in medicine and everyday life in the United States. As hard as it may be to believe today, ignorance of the dangers of radiation was so great that it was prescribed as treatment for acne, and many shoe stores had x-ray machines for people to measure their feet. Even worse, pregnant woman were often x-rayed so doctors could view the fetus. Fortunately, the views of scientists such as Muller prevailed and radiation is now used only when necessary.

 It is also worth noting that, despite what Stalin and other skeptics of eugenics might think, Muller continued to advocate eugenic policies to the end of his life. Muller went from arguing that socialism was necessary for eugenics to be successful to advocating for the establishment of a "sperm bank" to preserve the seed of the most biologically superior (e.g. geniuses such as himself) for use in reproduction. Many of Muller's beliefs, as we now know, have (for better or for worse) been realized.