HERTWIG, OSCAR. 1849-1922.


Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Bildung, Befruchtung und Theilung des thierischen Eies. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1875. 8vo (237 x 155 mm). 4 lithographic plates. Contemporary black cloth gilt. Joints starting, corners bumped, hinges cracked. Provenance: Botanical Institute of the Royal University of Bonn (canceled library stamp on title); Eduard Strasburger (ink stamps on title).TRUE FIRST EDITION of Oscar Hertwig's breakthrough publication on fertilization. Oscar and his brother Richard were prominent German zoologists, working together early in their careers before Richard moved to the Ludwig Maximilians Universität in Munich. Oscar demonstrated that "... fertilization occurs by the union of the nuclei of the male and female sex cells. Hertwig also established the transfer of hereditary material is part of the same nuclear process" (Garrison-Morton 495, referring to an 1876 journal publication of this same work).