The distribution of Cooley's anaemia in China

• Published in: Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
• Main Authors: McFadzean, A.J.S., Todd, D.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 1964
• Subjects: Communications; Bering Strait
• Online Access: http://trstmh.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/58/6/490; https://doi.org/10.1016/0035-9203(64)90103-8

The origins in China of 485 Chinese families or individual patients with Cooley's anaemia, correlated with the origins in China of the population of Hong Kong as revealed by the 1961 census, are reported. The gene has been found to be widely and, possibly, uniformly distributed throughout China and is not restricted to South China. This widespread distribution of the gene among the Chinese, and its occurrence in the three other major subdivisions of the continental Mongoloids (Thais, Tibetans and the descendants of the nomadic Mongoloids of the North), are best interpreted by assuming that the mutation occurred in a stock common to all four sub-divisions, that is, in prehistoric times. This hypothesis is supported by the reports of the gene in Melanesians and by a report of its occurrence in the American Red Indians (<scp>Prouty</scp>, 1950) who are considered to be descendants of an eastern migration of Mongoloids over the Bering Strait in the last Ice Age. On the other hand if the gene is indeed absent from the Japanese, in view of their history their escape is difficult to explain on this hypothesis. (Vide addendum). Though admitting the possibility that mass migrations cannot entirely explain the present known geographical distribution of the gene, we conclude that such must have played a major role. Historical evidence is presented which shows that throughout history the mass migrations of people in East Asia have been centrifugal from the homeland of the Mongoloids. This evidence is considered to refute the hypothesis that the gene of Cooley's anaemia was introduced into East Asia from the West. Rather does it indicate that the movements of the Mongoloids may well have been responsible for a wide dissemination of the gene, and the movements of the Mongoloid nomads of the North could have resulted in dissemination of the gene far to the West. The occurrence of haemoglobins E, H and Barts among Chinese from Kwangtung Province is recorded.