Biographie Johann Mendel (Gregor Mendel)

Johann Mendel was born July 20 or 22 1822 [1] at Heinzendorf (Hynčice, Nový Jičín district), a small village of Moravia, in a family of peasants. Gifted studies, but depressive tendency that earned him multiple illnesses later in his career, the boy is particularly quickly noticed by the parish priest of the village decides to send study far from home. In 1840, he joined the Institute of philosophy of Olmutz to attend two preparatory years at the entrance to the University. In September 1843, Mendel is received at the noviciate of Brunn monastery where he took the first name of Gregor; He will be ordained a priest in 1847. This monastery is led by Cyrill Franz Napp, a prelate scientific and open, and contains, apart from a given library, a botanical garden. Upon arrival at the monastery, Mendel feels all that a specifically stimulating cultural environment can bring his aspirations. He spends all his free time to the study of natural sciences. At the same time it ensures scientific teaching in colleges and high schools in the surrounding area but is reluctant to pastoral tasks. In 1849 he accepted a teaching position in a nearby town but fails on two occasions in tests of the examination of fitness education.

The Monastery St. Thomas, BrnoMendel hand in 1851 to take the course as a free listener, the Institute of physics, Christian Doppler; He studied, in addition to the mandatory contents, Botany, plant physiology, entomology, paleontology. In two years, it takes all of the methodological groundwork to later experiences. During his stay in Vienna, Mendel is led to take an interest in the theories of Franz Unger, Professor of plant physiology. He advocates the experimental study to understand the birth of the new characters in plants in successive generations. He hopes to resolve the problem posed by hybridization in plants.

Returning to the monastery, Mendel installs an experimental Garden in the courtyard and in the greenhouse, in agreement with his Abbot, and is a design of experiments to explain the laws of the origin and formation of hybrids. He chooses this pea has the advantage of easily grown with many described varieties. In 1863 an epidemic devastates crops and Mendel then turned to other species. He exhibited and published the results of these studies in 1865 in an article entitled: research on plant hybrids. After ten years of careful work, Mendel thus laid the theoretical bases of genetics and modern inheritance.

His work does not generate enthusiasm among his contemporaries who have difficulty understanding the mathematical formalization of his experiences. Particularly little scientists of his time will cite his work and Mendel receives little responses to various correspondents to which it sends a taken-to-part. Of these, only Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli, Professor of botany at Munich, he drafted, uncertain of some of its conclusions.

In 1868, Mendel was elected superior of the convent on the death of the abbé Napp. Forced to spend lot of time to the duties of his Office, he abandoned his particularly extensive research on hybridization of plants. He then engages other areas more compatible with its obligations, especially the horticulture and beekeeping. He is also passionate about meteorology which will be the domain that it will be the longest studied, from 1856 until his death in 1884, making systematic long-term surveys and compiling all of the results of the weather stations in his country. It will also better known by his contemporaries for his contribution to this matter for its contribution to the emerging genetic.

In 1883, he began to suffer from kidney failure likely will win a year later