IN THIS centennial year of Charles Darwin it is interesting to note that Asa Gray, Doctor of Medicine, contributed heavily to the development of the theory of evolution that culminated in the fundamental concepts presented in "The Origin of Species" (Dupree, A. H.: Asa Gray, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1957). The first edition of this monumental volume was published in November, 1859. The presentation by Darwin was based on the painful accumulation of scientific information that had extended over several decades.
Asa Gray, Darwin's collaborator, was born early in the last century in the central part of New York State. Obviously he was a brilliant student, attested by the evidence that he began his formal education at the age of 3 years. He was exposed to Greek and Latin before he was an adolescent. After one year in a private academy in the Adirondacks, he abandoned undergraduate education and