Ur rite Merle
So dont feel Blue
A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's storehouse of human knowledge
Is there really a race of blue people?
24-Jul-1998
So I may as well tell you the truth, namely that your husband is
probably talking about the blue Fugates of Kentucky, the best warning
against the dangers of inbreeding prior to the arrival of Prince
Charles.
The blue Fugates weren't a race but rather an excessively tight-knit
family living in the Appalachian Mountains. The patriarch of the clan
was Martin Fugate, who settled along the banks of Troublesome Creek near
Hazard, Kentucky, sometime after 1800. His wife, Mary, is thought to
have been a carrier for a rare disease known as hereditary
methemoglobinemia, which we'll call met-H.
Due to an enzyme deficiency, the blood of met-H victims has reduced
oxygen-carrying capacity. Instead of being the usual bright red,
arterial blood is chocolate brown and gives the skin of Caucasians a
bluish cast. Hereditary met-H is caused by a recessive gene. If only one
of your parents has this gene, you'll be normal, but if they both have
it, there's a good chance you'll be blue.
None of Martin and Mary Fugate's descendants would have been blue had
they not intermarried with a nearby clan, the Smiths. The Smiths were
descendants of Richard Smith and Alicia Combs, one of whom apparently
was also a met-H carrier. According to family historian Mary Fugate, the
first known blue Fugate was born in 1832. Because of inbreeding among
the isolated hill folk--the Fugate family tree is a tangled mess of
cousins marrying cousins--blue people started popping up frequently
thereafter. A half dozen or so were on the scene by the 1890s, and one
case was reported as recently as 1975. They were quite a sight. One
woman is said to have had lips the color of a bruise.
In 1960 a doctor named Madison Cawein heard about the blue Fugates and
succeeded in tracking down several of them. Luckily some cases of
hereditary met-H among native Alaskans had been written up in the
medical literature not long before, so he was able to diagnose the
problem fairly quickly. He also prescribed a simple, if temporary,
cure--the chemical methylene blue, which replaced the missing enzyme in
the blood. The results were dramatic. Within minutes after getting a
dose, the blue Fugates became a normal pink for the first time in their
lives.
Today, what with increased prosperity and mobility, the Fugates get
around a lot more and the likelihood of further instances of blueness is
thought to be low. Still, if you're in the neighborhood of Troublesome
Creek and someone tells you he's feeling blue, try to get a look at him
in a good light.
Blue as Tom T. Hall after playin a show
in Alaska--------Tom is fm Ky I think