Bronson Price: 1905-1978. In memoriam.

It is likely that the best-known paper on twins, at least in the English language, is " Primary biases in twin studies ". Although published as a review, it was more nearly a monograph and presented the most thorough discussion, then or now, of the potential effects of intrauterine phenomena on twin differences after birth. The paper called attention to peculiarities of development in twins: lateral inversions, shared circulation, and complications of delivery, and explored the consequences of each. In particular, it suggested that imbalance in the shared circulation of monochorionic monozygotic (MZ) twins was likely to produce differences within pairs that would be mistaken for effects of postnatal environment. The author of this paper was born in Freeport, Illinois. He attended Antioch College and Stanford University, where he obtained a Ph.D. degree in psychology and biometrics in 1934. During two years in Europe as a fellow of the Social Science Research Council, mostly in Moscow, he made the close friendship of H.J. Muller. His association with geneticists continued after he returned to the USA and became an instructor in psychology at the Ohio State University. In two brief papers of that period he applied a genetic point of view to the then fresh debate about a general factor, " g ", in intelligence. In 1940 he published, with Sidney Halperin, a thoughtful analysis of the efficacy of sterilization in reducing mental deficiency. The paper challenged one by R.A. Fisher titled, " The elimination of mental defect", and gave very good reasons for opposing compulsory sterilization laws. The arguments are still cogent and relevant. Before leaving Ohio, Price undertook a twin-control experiment which could well serve as a paradigm, comparing the facility with which identical twins learned two contrasting versions of Interlingua. Early in 1941 he took leave from Ohio State to work as a personnel technician with the War Department in Washington. He was then caught up in the war effort, mainly interpreting radio broadcasts from eastern Europe for the Office of War Information. At the end of hostilities he did not return to academe, but served successively as a Social Science Analyst in the National Office of Vital Statistics, an Analytical Statistician in the Children's Bureau, and a Survey Statistician in the Office of Education. His official work in these positions appeared in government documents; the few which credit his authorship are not cited below because they do not relate to genetics. Although he worked most of his life as a statistician, Bronson Price's dearest scientific interest remained behavioral genetics. Perhaps partly because of his closeness to Hermann Muller, Price was among the founders of the American Society of Human Genetics in 1948. He served on the original Boards of Editors and of Directors. The seed for the Primary Biases paper was probably sowed at the Medico-Genetical Institute in Moscow, where the importance of the mutual circulation for surviving twins was discounted.