Science From The Tomb…

Coll-1364/1/6

Coll-1364/1/6: Papers of R.A. Beatty

It’s nearly Hallowe’en, when spooky subjects are foremost in our minds. An ideal time, then, to look at some rather unusual correspondence from the Richard Alan Beatty archive about Egyptian mummies! At first glance, this might seem an unlikely research subject for a reproductive physiologist, but Beatty had his reasons. Writing from the Institute of Animal Genetics to the Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum in July 1977, Beatty asks whether he may have a sample of ‘a testis of an Egyptian mummy’ to enable him to assess whether ‘ certain aspects of chromosome structure and spermatozoan morphology are stable’. In his letter, Beatty realises his request may be a ‘long shot’, but if it worked, ‘it could make an entertaining letter to Nature.’

Beatty was to be disappointed at first. He received a reply three days later from the Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum regretting that, as all their mummies were still in their wrapped state, the Museum could not allow any ‘surgical operation’ to take place. In reply, Beatty understands this restriction, but wonders if he could obtain any mummified cats instead, as ‘there would be merit in looking first at a mummy of some mammal other than man.’ He adds: ‘I read that 100,000 mummified cats were sold for fertiliser in the last century, and this made me hope that cats are in plentiful supply!’ However, he learned that those mummified animals in the Department’s collection were wrapped as well, and so also unavailable for study.

However, Beatty was directed to the Museum’s Department of Zoology, where he had better luck. This Department boasted a collection of mummified ‘monkeys, cats, dogs, and mongooses’, and were happy to let Beatty take a testis sample from an adult male dog from the W.M. Flinders Petrie collection, which was in an unwrapped state. He would also be permitted a sample from a human mummy in the Department of Palaeontology. Beatty visited the Museum on 16 December 1977 to take his samples, having been advised that ‘a strong sharp scalpel’ would be needed, the consistency of the mummified tissue being like ‘very hard leather’. Ever prepared, Beatty tested out his scalpel on ‘an old leather boot’ beforehand!

From a report amidst the correspondence, it appears Beatty was eventually successful in getting his samples from the dog and human mummies:

Testis cores taken 16/12/77, wrapped in polythene, placed in tube, tube later maintained in dessicator.

Dog: Consistency very hard – almost rock-like…

Human: Consistency like medium hard cheese, very oily in texture.

It is not clear from Beatty’s archive exactly what resulted from his research on the Egyptian mummies – so we’d be delighted to hear from anyone who may know more about it! In the meantime, you can read more about the strange story, mentioned by Beatty, of the 180,000 mummified cats brought over to England from Egypt in the nineteenth century to be used as fertiliser here:
http://www.strangehistory.net/2013/12/18/tens-of-thousands-of-egyptian-mummies-in-english-soil/

Happy Hallowe’en everyone!

Clare Button
Project Archivist

Dame Anne McLaren (1927-2007)

Anne McLaren (picture sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_McLaren)

Anne McLaren (picture sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org

It’s always great to receive comments and feedback from our blog readers, especially those which suggest subjects or people which we haven’t yet featured. We have a growing list of posts to respond to our readers’ suggestions, and we are delighted that our first of these focuses on Dame Anne McLaren.

Anne McLaren was a hugely important figure in the fields of mammalian reproductive and developmental biology and genetics, and she is possibly best known for her work as director of the Medical Research Council Mammalian Development Unit at University College London. Her long and rich career in the techniques and ethics of fertility is covered in ample detail in John Biggers’ excellent obituary: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/jul/10/uk.obituaries

In this blog, I want to focus specifically on McLaren’s time in Edinburgh, and her appearances in our archive collections. After gaining her degree at Oxford and completing postdoctoral work in London, McLaren moved to Edinburgh in 1959 with her then-husband Donald Michie. She joined the Agricultural Research Council’s Unit of Animal Genetics (based within the Institute of Animal Genetics), working initially on the reproductive physiology of the mouse with Alan Beatty and others. During her time at the Institute, McLaren’s research spanned mammalian fertility, embryo transfer techniques and immunocontraception. She was particularly interested in egg transfer, the hormonal control of ovulation, superovulation and its effects on pregnancy, placental and foetal growth, and the effects of the uterine environment on skeletal character. She and John Biggers were the first to demonstrate that a mammalian embryo grown in vitro for several days would subsequently develop into a normal adult. McLaren also worked with chimeras (organisms consisting of two or more genetically different kinds of tissue), and her later book on the subject, published in 1976, became a classic text.

McLaren was well liked and respected in Edinburgh. The correspondence of Institute of Animal Genetics director C.H. Waddington reveals that he proposed McLaren for Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1968 (he was disappointed that she was not elected until 1974, after she had left the Institute), with F.W. Rogers Brambell as seconder. Waddington’s statement of support commends McLaren’s work on the reproductive biology of the mouse, and in particular the rigour of her statistical and quantitative approach. Waddington also praises her personal attributes: ‘She has in a high degree an ability found only in some scientists of being both highly critical and extremely helpful. Very many workers, at all levels from the young to quite mature ones, like to talk over with her some subject they are tackling, confident that she will spot any weaknesses in their arguments, or, more positively, coax them into thinking straighter than they had done before.’ (Coll-41/9/4/4)

Alan Beatty’s papers contain the most information relating to McLaren, as they worked closely together until McLaren departed for London in 1974. They secured a series of grants from the Ford Foundation for a sustained programme of work on reproductive physiology, and together with colleagues, they lobbied for a Centre for Reproductive Biology to be established in Edinburgh (which occurred in 1980). Beatty’s archive reveals an active and busy schedule of planning meetings and funding applications underpinning he and McLaren’s research. Letters from McLaren after her departure to London show that she continued to take an interest in matters in Edinburgh, and stayed in touch with old colleagues and friends.

In London, McLaren’s research took her on to study the development of mammalian primordial germ cells, and she published an acclaimed book on the subject in 1980. After her retirement from the MGU, she became principal research associate at the Welcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute in Cambridge. Anne McLaren died aged 80, along with her former husband Donald Michie, in a car accident en route from Cambridge to London on 7 July 2007.

Importantly, McLaren’s scientific work formed the basis of her wider engagement with ethical and societal issues surrounding fertility and reproduction, and, later, stem cell research and cloning technologies. She sat on the Warnock Committee, which contributed to the passing of the 1987 Family Law Reform Act and the 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. A copy of one of her articles, titled ‘The Future of the Family’, was retained by Waddington in his papers, and demonstrates that, for McLaren, science has the potential to direct humans towards a better society. The article, written in 1972, concludes:

People in the future will be faced with more leisure: I hope that they will use it for a greater degree of democratic participation in the running of our society; for self-education, aided by computers whose tutorial intelligences will soon be at our disposal; and above all for the benefit of their smaller families of children. It is in the early years of life that personalities are moulded and the foundations of ethical systems laid: we must find out how not to cripple children’s minds as most, perhaps all, are crippled today, and how to instil an ethic of loyalty and protectiveness which begins with other members of the family and does not stop at national boundaries, but extends for the first time over the entire human race.

Clare Button
Project Archivist
If you have a topic relating to animal genetics in Edinburgh which you’d like to see covered, get in touch!