Nucleus as the seat of heredity
The origin of this groundbreaking idea lies in a few sentences tucked away in Ernst Haeckel's ''Generelle Morphologie'' of 1866. The evidence for this insight gradually accumulated until, after twenty or so years, two of the greatest in a line of great German scientists spelled out the concept. August Weismann proposed that the germ line is separate from the soma, and that the cell nucleus is the repository of the hereditary material, which, he proposed, is arranged along the chromosomes in a linear manner. Further, he proposed that at fertilisation a new combination of chromosomes (and their hereditary material) would be formed. This was the explanation for the reduction division of meiosis (first described by van Beneden).
Chromosomes as vectors of heredity
In a series of experiments, Theodor Boveri gave the definitive demonstration that chromosomes are the vectors of heredity. His two principles were based upon the ''continuity'' of chromosomes and the ''individuality'' of chromosomes.
It is the second of these principles that was so original. Boveri was able to test the proposal put forward by Wilhelm Roux, that each chromosome carries a different genetic load, and showed that Roux was right. Upon the rediscovery of Mendel, Boveri was able to point out the connection between the rules of inheritance and the behaviour of the chromosomes. It is interesting to see that Boveri influenced two generations of American cytologists: Edmund Beecher Wilson, Walter Sutton and Theophilus Painter were all influenced by Boveri (Wilson and Painter actually worked with him).
In his famous textbook ''The Cell'', Wilson linked Boveri and Sutton together by the Boveri-Sutton theory. Mayr remarks that the theory was hotly contested by some famous geneticists: William Bateson, Wilhelm Johannsen, Richard Goldschmidt and T.H. Morgan, all of a rather dogmatic turn-of-mind. Eventually complete proof came from chromosome maps in Morgan's own lab.
Further Reading
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