An Austrian biologist who claimed early in this century to have produced experimental evidence of the validity of the Lamarckian genetic mechanism for the inheritance of acquired characteristics. He worked on sea squirts, salamanders, and midwife toads. For example, the midwife toad is land dwelling, and the male lacks the dark and rough nuptial pads on the knees of similar species that breed in water. Kammerer claimed to have bred nuptial pads into his (male) midwife toads by forcing them to live and mate in water. Other biologists could not check his findings, for they were not as skilled as he in keeping such animals in abnormal conditions.
Kammerer’s work was disrupted by the First World War and by subsequent Austrian inflation. His claims were vigorously attacked by William Bateson in 1913. Debate with English geneticists continued after the war. In 1926, it was found that the knee pads on a preserved specimen of a midwife toad had been darkened with ink. Kammerer denied all knowledge of the apparent fraud but soon after committed suicide. People drew their own conclusions. The case was the subject of a book by Arthur Koestler which claimed Kammerer was a misjudged martyr for Lamarckianism.