Biographical Memoirs Volume 57 (1987) / Chapter Skim
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Karl Sax
Karl Sax
Pages 372-397
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From page 373... ...
When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a part of the very push at bone, man becomes, as it were, a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither fee completeness and the integrity of the animal nor the birthright of a true humanity. TH E S E W O R D S by Henry Beston from his now classic volume, Outermost House, strike us as uniquely applicable to Karl Sax.
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From page 374... ...
Sax entered Washington State College in 1912 to major in agriculture, and it was here that he met Professor Ec~ward Gaines, a wheat breeder in the Experiment Station. Gaines lect him into research and uncloubtedly encouraged him to continue his studies at the graduate level.
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From page 375... ...
Sax remained at Orono until ~ 928 when he was appointed associate professor of plant cytology at the Arnold Arboretum ant! named to the faculty of the Bussey Institution Gracluate School of Applied Biology, an affiliate of Harvard University concerned!
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From page 376... ...
He held simultaneously the rather empty title of superintendent of the Bussey Institution. But both administrative appointments were abruptly terminated by Harvard University in 1954 as a result of his vigorous but losing opposition to the proposal that the general resources of the Arnold Arboretum books, herbarium specimens, and funds be transferred to Cambridge as part of a move for the consolidation of botany.
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From page 377... ...
He was a member of the Genetics Society of America, serving as president in 1958; the Botanical Society of America he received its certificate of merit in 1956; American Society of Horticultural Science; American Genetics Association; Population Association of America; Planned Parenthooc! League, serving as president of the Massachusetts chapter in ~958; American Academy of Social anct Political Sciences; and the Radiation Research Society.
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From page 378... ...
In 1951 he received the signal honor of being asked to deliver the Lowell Lectures in Boston, choosing as his topic world population problems. The research and publication record of Karl Sax spanned a period of fifty-five years (1916-1971)
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From page 379... ...
By experimenting with a wide variety of intervarietal, interspecific, and even intergeneric combinations of rootstocks and scions; by the use of different interstocks between root and scion; and by single ant! double bark inversions to block the flow of nutrients through the phIoem, Sax contributed significantly to an unclerstanding of the phenomenon, re~lucecl the variability of graft compatibility and growth, anti simplified the techniques to the point where the average nurseryman could readily produce his own dwarfs.
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From page 380... ...
He shared with the Japanese cytologists Kihara and Sakamura the credit for discovering the role of polyploidy and interspecific hybridization in the origin of certain wheat species, a seminal work of great significance in understanding the nature of some of our basic food plants. Comparable studies, in which Hally Jolivette Sax often participated, were carried out on a wide variety of groups growing or being tested in the Arboretum: Pomoideae, Pinaceae, Rosaceae, CycIadales, Hamamalidaceae, Vitis, Yucca and Agave, Rhododendron, Paeonia, Ulmus, and Platanus.
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From page 381... ...
The implication and transference of these data to problems of radiation therapy, evolution, and speciation were inevitable, as was acictitional information related to the effects of temperature, cell cycle, (lose rate, and dose fractionation on the final frequency of inducecl change. Sax was the father of radiation cytology, anct he spawned a whole generation of "chromosome busters." In his later years, and particularly after retirement, Sax turned to the chromosomal aspects of aging in seeds, and to the radiomimetic effects of caffeine, insecticides, and chemical food acIditives.
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From page 382... ...
Mil(l-mannered and retiring as he was in his personal relations, Sax was actively aggressive in the Planned Parenthood League and in his demographic speeches and articles. His local target was the restrictive birth control law of Massachusetts.
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From page 383... ...
He was particularly clisturbe(1 by demographic anti scientific Pollyannas who, through ignorance or design, duped the public with glowing scenes of future happiness and an abundance for all. Consequently Sax reviewed Enough and to Spare, a book by Harvar(1 colleague Kirtley Mather, in a tempere(1 but (devastating manner to show that both Mather's demography and his biological postulates were utterly without foundation, that his optimism was basec!
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From page 384... ...
Both tract published on chromosome structure, the mechanisms of crossing over, and the origin of chiasmata, with the Darlingtonian views the more nearly correct. Both were also interested in demography Sax again the pragmatist, Darlington the theorist, as he wove genetics, race, Ids, mating patterns, and the improvement of mankind into his mental cobwebs.
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From page 385... ...
cost him position and friends. Karl Sax was survived by his wife, Hally Jolivette, who passed away on March 20, 1979; three sons—Dr.
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From page 386... ...
II. Chromosome behavior in partially sterile hybrids.
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From page 387... ...
The relation between chromosome number, morphological characters and rust resistance in segregates of partially sterile wheat hybrids. Genetics, 8:301-21.
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From page 388... ...
Arnold Arboretum cytological laboratory report, 1929-1930.
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From page 389... ...
Arnold Arboretum cytological laboratory report, 1931-1932.
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From page 390... ...
With Hally Jolivette Sax. Chromosome structure and behavior in mitosis and meiosis.
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From page 391... ...
The effect of temperature on X-ray induced chromosome aberrations.
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From page 392... ...
Temperature effects on X-ray induced chromosome aberrations. Genetics, 32:75 -78.
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From page 393... ...
The effect of X-rays on chromosome structure.
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From page 394... ...
The effects of CO and O on the frequency of X-ray induced chromosome aberrations in Tradescantia.
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From page 395... ...
2~:243-47. Plant breeding at the Arnold Arboretum.
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From page 396... ...
1961 With Hally Olivetti Sax. The effect of age of seed on the frequency of spontaneous and gamma ray induced chromosome aberrations.
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From page 397... ...
With Hally Jolivette Sax and Wayne Binns. Radiomimetic effects of veratrum.
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