ALTERNATION OF GENERATIONS IN ANIMALS AND PLANTS

STEENSTRUP, JOHANNES JAPETUS SMITH.

Om Forplantning og Udvikling gjennem vexlende Generationsrækker, en særegen Form for Opfostringen i de lavere Dyrklasser. [On Reproduction and Development through Alternation of Generations, a Special Form of Propagation in Lower Animals]. Udgivet som Indbydelsesskrift til Examen Artium og den offentlige Skole-Examen ved Soröe Academie i Juli 1842.

Copenhagen, Bianco Lunos, 1842. 4to. Bound in the original boards with silver stained papercovers. Some nicks to backstrip. Margins of covers having the silver-staining toned down (oxidation). Edges gilt. As it is printed on "vellum-paper" and edges gilt, it is probably one of the gift copies, but unsigned. IV, 76 pp. and 3 double-page, folded lithographed plates with many figs. Light marginal browning to plates, otherwise fine.

The scarce first edition of the work in which Steenstrup describes his discovery of the principle of 'alternation of generations', sexual and asexual in plants and animals.
"(Steenstrup) showed that certain animals produce offspring which never resemble them but which, on the other hand, bring forth progeny which return in form and nature to their grandparents or more distant ancestors." (Garrison & Morton No 217). A German translation was published the same year, and an English in 1845. Norman 2009 (German translation).

"The second major publication - (the first dealing with geology) - of 1842 was "Om Forplantning og Udvikling gjennem vexlende Generationsrækker...", (the work offered), Steenstrup's comprehensive presentation of the form of reproduction that he called 'alternation of generations', that is, the alternation of asexual and sexual reproduction, or metagenesis. This phenomenon had previously been described by Chamisso, but Steenstrup included a greater number of observations, based on a significantly wider range of subjects, and provided an important chapter on its meaning. Steenstrup's growing reputation, won him an appointment as professor of zoology at the University of Copenhagen, where he taught from 1846 until 1885." (DSB XII, p. 9).

Order-nr.: 43704