Ethel Browne, Hans Spemann, and the Discovery of the Organizer Phenomenon

Ethel Browne Harvey (1885-1965) will be familiar to some as a researcher on the embryology of sea urchins. Few, however, know her as Ethel Browne who, as a graduate student, published, in 1909, a remarkable paper demonstrating for the first time the induction by a transplant of a secondary axis of polarity in the host. This process was later named "organization" by Spemann and Mangold (1924) in a paper that led to Spemann's being awarded the Nobel Prize. Why did the Nobel Committee, or other embryologists for that matter, not connect Browne's discovery with that of Spemann and Mangold? Did they consider the development of hydra as being too remote from that occurring in embryos of vertebrates? Did the 1909 paper of Ethel Browne in any way influence the thinking of Spemann or Mangold, although it was never referred to in any of Spemann's papers? In light of new information about Spemann's knowledge of Browne's work, we also can ask a number of questions about the interplay of basic prejudices in the reception accorded Browne's work.