Organic memory

Organic memory is a discredited biological theory, held in the late nineteenth century before the rediscovery of Mendelian genetics.

[1][2] German physiologist Ewald Hering first suggested the idea of organic memory in an 1870 lecture for the Imperial Academy of Science in Vienna.

Hering took influence from the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics and suggested that memories could be passed on through generations by germ cells.

[3] Variants of the organic memory theory were proposed by advocates of Lamarckian evolution such as Samuel Butler, Ernst Haeckel, Eugenio Rignano, Théodule-Armand Ribot and Richard Semon.

Semon's mneme-theory fell into disrepute largely because in a Lamarckian fashion it proposed that memory units are passed from one generation to another.