For a time at least, Muller stayed connected with his Soviet colleagues. This extensive communication from the cytologist Alexandra Prokofyeva discusses her progress on investigating the Scute gene and includes several further pictures.
Doctor Spillman writes to Muller bemoaning the stubbornness of his profession concerning the dangers of radiation.
Hitler was still ominously gaining power to the east, but that was no excuse to not focus on the business of genetics and Muller returned to normal work with enthusiasm. His student Sachi Prasad Ray-Chaudhuri was exploring the effects of radiation dose on mutation and Charlotte “Lotte” Auerbach engaged in her own trail-blazing research on the chemical induction of mutations with Muller’s encouragement and mentoring. She would become the first researcher to unequivocally establish that things other than radiation, in her case mustard gas, caused gene mutations. Of particular note is that Muller and his colleagues were increasingly finding evidence of the dangers of radiation, even for the small doses used in medical radiology. Despite their almost complete ignorance of the relevant science, many members of the medical community were highly recalcitrant and this would be a fight Muller would have to pursue over the next several decades.
Dorothea "Thea" Kantorowicz Muller seen here in Edinburgh in 1939. The picture was taken by Hermann Muller. The original is held by their daughter, Helen Muller, and is reproduced here with her permission.
Further distracting him from the looming threat of war, was a budding romance. Auerbach had introduced Muller to Dorothea “Thea” Kantorowicz, a German-Jewish refugee and physician then working as a pregnancy diagnostic technician at the same Institute. Theirs was a whirlwind romance and they married in May of 1939, less than a year after meeting. Thea deserves particular mention in this short biography, as besides her importance in Muller’s life, her efforts were also instrumental to the development and organization of the Muller collection at the Lilly Library where she voluntarily worked with his collection for ten years.
