History
Favism is a disorder characterized by hemolytic anemia in response to ingestion of fava beans. Favism as a diagnosis has been known since antiquity. One theory for the Pythagoreans' avoidance of beans is avoidance of favism, but more likely, this was a philosophical matter, such as the belief that beans and humans were created from the same material.
The modern understanding of the condition began with the analysis of patients who exhibited sensitivity to primaquine. The discovery of G6PD deficiency relied heavily upon the testing of prisoner volunteers at Illinois State Penitentiary, although today such studies cannot be performed. When some prisoners were given the drug primaquine, some developed hemolytic anemia but others did not. After studying the mechanism through Cr51 testing, it was conclusively shown that the hemolytic effect of primaquine was due to an intrinsic defect of erythrocytes.
Read more about this topic: Glucose-6-phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)