The blue people of troublesome creek. The True Story of the Blue People of Kentucky 2022-10-28
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The Blue People of Troublesome Creek is a rare genetic condition that results in the affected individuals having blue-tinted skin. The condition is caused by a deficiency in the enzyme responsible for breaking down methemoglobin, a form of hemoglobin that carries oxygen in the blood. When the body is unable to break down methemoglobin, it accumulates in the blood and gives the skin a bluish tint.
The Blue People of Troublesome Creek were a family living in the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky in the early 20th century. The family's blue skin was passed down through the maternal line, and several generations of the family were affected by the condition. The family lived in isolation in the mountains and were not discovered by the outside world until the 1930s.
The condition that caused the blue skin of the Blue People of Troublesome Creek is now known as methemoglobinemia, and it is a rare genetic disorder that affects only a small number of people worldwide. It is caused by a deficiency in the enzyme that breaks down methemoglobin, which results in the accumulation of methemoglobin in the blood. The condition is usually inherited and is caused by mutations in the gene that codes for the enzyme.
Symptoms of methemoglobinemia include a blue or grey tint to the skin, shortness of breath, fatigue, and a rapid heart rate. The condition can be treated with medications that help the body break down methemoglobin and increase the oxygen levels in the blood. However, if left untreated, methemoglobinemia can lead to serious health problems and even death.
The Blue People of Troublesome Creek were a fascinating and mysterious group of people who lived in isolation in the Appalachian Mountains. Their rare genetic condition gave them a unique appearance that set them apart from the rest of the world. Today, methemoglobinemia is a rare but treatable genetic disorder that affects only a small number of people. Despite the advances in medicine that have allowed for the treatment of methemoglobinemia, the Blue People of Troublesome Creek will always be remembered as a reminder of the mysteries of genetics and the human body.
The Blue People of Appalachia
Cawein got lucky when a brother and sister named Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked into a Hazard County clinic. It is a deeply researched piece of historical fiction based on the true story of the Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky. Stacy is the great-great-great-great-grandson of Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith — but by this point, the blue people of Kentucky are just a memory. Stacy spotted Luna at Sunday services of the Old Regular Baptist Church back before the century turned. Dark blue lips and fingernails are the only traces of Martin Fugate's legacy left in the boy; that, and the recessive gene that has shaded many of the Fugates and their kin blue for the past 162 years.
This information supplied by John Graves whose uncle was the father of the child. Activating it requires adding to the blood a substance that acts as an "electron donor. One day, one of the older mountain men cornered the doctor. Still, others were blue only on their hands or fingernails. For those with the affliction, the degree of blue on the skin varies from light blue to ocean and sky blue.
Stacy's son has built a modern house next door, but the old logger won't hear of leaving the cabin he built with timber he personally cut and hewed for Luna and their 13 children. She and her husband Alva have a strong sense of family. Tests for abnormal hemoglobin were negative. Margery and Sven already have a child together out of wedlock before their marriage. Madison Cawein began hearing rumors about the blue people when he went to work at the University of Kentucky's Lexington medical clinic in 1960. Decades before Ben's birth, the legend of the "Blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek" caught the attention of a hematologist someone who studies blood from the University of Kentucky named Dr.
The Science Behind The Mysterious Blue People Of Kentucky
They kept to themselves in the hills of Troublesome Creek and were the stuff legends are made of; with their rural location far from hospitals and other signs of civilization, they were barely seen by outsiders. John Stacy still lives on Lick Branch of Ball Creek. Cawein cheers their bad luck not out of malice but out of a deep respect for the blue people of Troublesome Creek. I absolutely love incorporating this wonderful genetics story into my genetics unit. She was as blue a woman as I ever saw. Find Records Now for Free Start your free trial today to learn more about your ancestors using our powerful and intuitive search.
They sing in the Stacy Family Gospel Band and have provided their children with a beautiful home and a menagerie of pets, including horses. Such people tend to be very blue only at birth, probably because newborns normally have smaller amounts of diaphorase. The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjy, who carry one gene. This meant the local girls and boys had an extremely limited supply of potential partners, a situation that unsurprisingly led to a lot of intermarrying. Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin metHb in the blood. He has a rare genetic condition that has turned his skin a striking indigo blue. Cawein drew "lots of blood" from the Ritchies and hurried back to his lab.
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The odds against it were incalculable, but Martin Fugate managed to find and marry a woman who carried the same recessive gene. Stacy recalls that his father-inlaw, Levy Fugate, was "part of the family that showed blue. The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjamin, who carry one gene. Luna is buried at the top of the hollow. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. The American Heart Association had a clinic in Hazard, and it was there that Cawein met "a great big nurse" who offered to help. This baby is just the devil to settle right now and I was wondering if they had anything would help? After concluding that there was no evidence of heart disease, I said 'Aha! While medical science and the integration of the Fugates of Kentucky into a more extensive bloodline has made the blue-skinned people disappear, their story and the legends behind their existence in remote Kentucky remain.
That was the pain of being blue in a world that is mostly shades of white to black. One relative describes her as "blue all over," and another calls Luna "the bluest woman I ever saw. If the blue people did have methemoglobinemia, the next step was to find out the cause. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. Please sign up for my newsletter for tips and tools to help you be your best. I love pulling in real life examples into every aspect of biology class, simply because it makes things more interesting.
You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue. One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. Book is out of print, borrowed from Special Collections at the St. Her lips were as dark as a bruise. If this conversion continued, all the body's hemoglobin would eventually be rendered useless. It was not immediately obvious because, unlike Fugate, Smith had only one abnormal gene. I looked at other enzymes and nothing was wrong with them.
