Miescher’s private thoughts about the role of stereochemistry in heredity were never incorporated into a published paper, and historians of biology have often treated them disparagingly, in essence as an insignificant side note (Olby 1969, 1974; Mirsky 1968). While he was on his research on the key components of white blood cells. 0000023409 00000 n 0000008820 00000 n 1953 and all that: a tale of two sciences. Miescher was a chemist, whereas cytologists, whom he disparagingly referred to as a “guild of dyers,” considered themselves the experts on what resides within cells (His 1897a). The Five Nucleotide Bases Albrecht Kossel gave DNA its current name (deoxyribonucleic acid) and identified the nucleotide bases: adenine, thymine, guanine .