FUNNY BLOOD – a family disease

Ann Simmons’s reason for investigating her family history was medical. At out April meeting Ann, a retired State Registered Nurse, spoke of the ‘funny blood’ disease which afflicted her immediate family & told us how the symptoms presented with pallor, tiredness & a general feeling of being unwell. One member of her family was seen to have ‘white ears’. Ann, being advised that the condition was probably hereditary & with her medical knowledge, decided to try & find out through which part of the family the disease came.
Her search, as with all family historians, began by finding her forefathers. Aided with many beautiful family photographs, hoarded by her Aunt Miriam & interspersed with paintings by Ann’s artistic father, she traced the past family members who had had various medical conditions such as anaemia, renal failure & leukaemia. A diagnosis of a ‘malfunction of the spleen’ (splenic anaemia) was made because the red blood cells became spherical instead of the normal convex shape & the patients were ‘cured’ by blood transfusions & eventually the removal of the spleen. It was often found that a personal stress situation was experienced before the disease became apparent & not all members of the same family suffered the disease.
A vast amount of research proved, with the aid of death certificates that many of her past family had peculiar illnesses, which today would be associated with Sphero-cytosis, Modern medical thinking is that the bone marrow is responsible for the condition rather than the spleen & treated with drugs. The operation, for this disease, is rarely carried out today. We learned that Ann herself has had a splenectomy & many transfusions whilst working as a nurse & now enjoys good health.
Her talk was very knowledgeable & eloquently presented & Ann answered many questions.
[Barbara Holmes]