Sickle Cell Anemia Case Study

Sickle Cell Anemia first came into the view of the world around 1910 when Dr. James Herrick; a cardiologist, had a patient who complained of pain and described symptoms that sounded like anemia. He handed the case down to his assistant who, after taking a blood sample, discovered that the patient’s blood cells were not shaped like normal blood cells. When the patient’s blood cells were compared to normal blood cells, they appeared to be “sickle shaped”. After seeing this for himself Dr. Herrick took an interest in the case as he knew that it could lead to the discovery of a new disease. Shortly after the discovery of the deformed blood cells, a paper was published by Dr. Herrick about the “sickle shaped” cells his assistant had discovered in
He recorded the observations he had made and returned to Africa shortly thereafter. He wanted to make sure that he had the evidence that he needed to publish his findings and have them withstand the scrutiny of other scientific minds. When he returned to Africa, he conducted an epidemiological study to complete and solidify his findings. Dr. Allison conducted an epidemiological study because in order to find the incidence of sickle cell in Africa, he needed to gather data from the actual base of his scientific studies. Only after gathering results from thousands of African Americans and looking at the correlation of the sickle cell disease in certain areas of Africa along with where malaria was found in high quantity, could he truly find the exact answers he needed to justify his hypothesis. Performing his tests out of pure observation or with a controlled experiment would not have gotten him the results and proof he needed. He needed to test the different areas in Africa to really make sure what he was seeing was
Now, like stated before, if offspring only carried one sickle cell trait then it did not really cause any problems for the child. They ended up simply being carriers of the trait and as an added benefit, they became practically immune to malaria. However, if two parents got together who both carried sickle cell traits, then there would be a one in four chance that their offspring would end up having sickle cell disease. Since sickle cells cause issues in the carriage of oxygen through the body through hemoglobin, this can be a fatal disease to have. The sickle cells can get stuck in the small blood vessels due to their shape, and block the flow of oxygen to areas of the body. This causes major issues in the body that the disease has formed in, and often ends up with organs having to be removed as well as a shortened life span. The hope of sickle cell carriers is to pass only one sickle cell trait onto their offspring so they can reap the benefits of being immune to malaria but, there is always the risk that their offspring will get two sickle cell traits and develop the deadly sickle cell