Sickle Cell Anemia

Ashley McCallum

Mrs. McGinnis

Analytical Thinking

July 11, 2013

“Sickle Cell Anemia”

Sickle Cell Disease is an inherited recessive gene that is passed down through families in which red blood cells form an abnormal crescent shape. In order for sickle cell anemia to occur, a sickle cell gene must be inherited from both the mother and the father. If a child inherits both a gene from its mother and father, it will cause a malfunction in the shape of the blood cell. A normal red blood cell is a disc shape. This is caused by a type of hemoglobin called Hemoglobin S. People who suffer from this can also become very ill, and that’s why Sickle Cell is referred as a disease at times.

Hemoglobin is a protein molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body’s tissues and returns carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs. Normal red blood cells contain hemoglobin A. Normally, red blood cells live for about 120 days before new ones replace them. Red blood cells containing mostly hemoglobin S do not live as long as normal red blood cells. They usually live for about 16 days. Normal red blood cells are soft and can pass through vessels easily. Opposed to abnormal red blood cells, they are stiff and have difficulty passing through vessels.

James Herrick, a doctor from Chicago, was the first person to recognize the sickle cell disease. However, he didn’t know what it was. In 1922, Verne Mason, a doctor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore Maryland, called the disease “Sickle Cell Anemia” for the first time. He was the first to realize that the disease was inherited according to the laws of genetics. However, it was not until 1949, that the way in which Sickle Cell Anemia could be inherited was fully understood. Sickle Cell Anemia is mostly common in people of African and Mediterranean descent. It is also seen in people from South and Central America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

Common symptoms may not occur until four months of age, but...