Distribution of the Sickle-Cell Trait in Uganda, and its Ethnological Significance

Abstract

IT has been known since 1910 that the red blood corpuscles of some Negroes assume a peculiar sickle shape when deprived of oxygen. The condition is hereditary, transmitted on Mendelian lines, and is estimated to affect some 7·5 per cent of North American Negroes¹. In the majority of those affected no disability is present ; but a small proportion is alleged to develop a chronic hæmolytic anæmia, and it is this aspect, rather than the inherited abnormality itself, that has claimed the attention of most medical writers on the subject. Although our interest was primarily medical, some of our findings appear to have a bearing on anthropology, and are therefore presented here.