Month: April 2026

As Friedrich Miescher found himself with less time to work on nuclein due to growing commitments, Classical mythology provided him with two powerful metaphors through which he could express his sense of frustration, futility, and being overwhelmed by the task before him. Both letters in which he expressed this are shown below with each being followed by my translation of the highlighted passage into English:

‘Since the middle of September, I have been entrenched in my laboratory without a single day’s interruption, often from 6 in the morning until late at night, in the hope of rolling the Stone of Sisyphus – which I call Salmo Salar [Note: this is the Linnaean name for the Atlantic salmon] -over the mountain.’

Letter LXIII 23^rd Nov 1888 in ‘Die Histochemischen und Physiologischen Arbeiten von Friedrich Miescher’ (‘The Histochemical and Physiological Work of Friedrich Miescher’ compiled by Wilhelm His, 1897, Leipzig); p.106.

‘I need fifty hands, not just two. Year after year, I am preoccupied from early in the morning until midnight and there will be few of my colleagues who take less rest. But the task is like the Lernaean Hydra – for each head that is struck off, six more grow in its place.’

Letter LXIX 2^nd Mar1891 in ‘Die Histochemischen und Physiologischen Arbeiten von Friedrich Miescher’ (‘The Histochemical and Physiological Work of Friedrich Miescher’ compiled by Wilhelm His, 1897, Leipzig); p.108.

As Friedrich Miescher lay sick in Davos with TB, his former mentor the distinguished physiologist Carl Ludwig offered him some words of consolation. The German original is shown below, followed by my translation of the highlighted text into English.

‘Ludwig always took part in following Miescher’s fortunes, he also visited him repeatedly in Switzerland and, as Miescher lay ill in Davos, he expressed his feelings in two heartfelt letters.

‘Truly,’ he wrote in one of the two letters, ‘Patience is easier to preach than practice, and I know from my own experience I know what it means to have to renounce work that is full of future potential and which one has come to love. As grievous as it may be for you to be sick, you have the comfort of having achieved everlasting accomplishments; you have made the centre, the core of all organic life accessible to chemical analysis; and however often the cell will be studied and examined during the centuries to come, the grateful descendants will remember you as the ground-breaking researcher.’

From ‘Die Histochemischen und Physiologischen Arbeiten von Friedrich Miescher’ (‘The Histochemical and Physiological Work of Friedrich Miescher’ compiled by Wilhelm His, 1897, Leipzig); p.12.

In the original letter shown below, followed by my translation into English of the highlighted passage, the tragedy of Friedrich Miescher is conveyed beautifully…

‘One of his former students compared him to a ship laden with priceless treasure that, just as it is returning to the harbour, sinks to the bottom of the sea.’

From ‘Die Histochemischen und Physiologischen Arbeiten von Friedrich Miescher’ (‘The Histochemical and Physiological Work of Friedrich Miescher’ compiled by Wilhelm His, 1897, Leipzig); p.2.

Despite having discovered what today we call DNA, the material of heredity, Friedrich Miescher went to his grave an unhappy man – weighed down by a sense of failure and missed opportunity – as this letter to his friend Ernst Böhm shows rather poignantly.

Miescher’s original letter is shown below, followed by my translation into English of the highlighted text:

‘I will never,’ he once wrote to Böhm [his friend, the German pharmacologist, Rudolf Böhm] know the happiness that belongs to the man who has lived up to their station in a harmonious way to the satisfaction of themselves and others, so my basic mood is the uncomfortable feeling of one who has lost a button from their braces.’ On another occasion he said, ‘For years I have to get used to the fact that, given the condition that my workload is four times as great as my capacity to do it, I must go to bed each night feeling like a schoolboy who has not completed his homework.’

Friedrich Miescher quoted in ‘Die Histochemischen und Physiologischen Arbeiten von Friedrich Miescher’ (‘The Histochemical and Physiological Work of Friedrich Miescher’ compiled by Wilhelm His, 1897, Leipzig); p.31.