Posted on 05/21/2004 8:08:30 PM PDT by blam
THE BLUE PEOPLE OF TROUBLESOME CREEK
The story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure.
by Cathy Trost
©Science 82, November, 1982
Six generations after a French orphan named Martin Fugate settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek with his redheaded American bride, his great-great-great great grandson was born in a modern hospital not far from where the creek still runs.
The boy inherited his father's lankiness and his mother's slightly nasal way of speaking.
What he got from Martin Fugate was dark blue skin. "It was almost purple," his father recalls.
Doctors were so astonished by the color of Benjy Stacy's skin that they raced him by ambulance from the maternity ward in the hospital near Hazard to a medical clinic in Lexington. Two days of tests produced no explanation for skin the color of a bruised plum.
A transfusion was being prepared when Benjy's grandmother spoke up. "Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek?" she asked the doctors.
(Excerpt) Read more at people.virginia.edu ...
About 3 weeks ago I was traveling up one of those long Eastern Kentucky hollers (hollows to those of you in Rio Linde), up Robinson Creek to be specific, when I saw a genuine double-wide.
An enterprising soul was in the process of setting up two used trailers, side by side, in immediate proximity. He put some rafters over the combined width and was installing shiney new 5V roofing.
The combo looked to be 24 x 65. I suppose that when new vinyl siding covered up the red and white aluminum on the front trailer and the gold and white on the rear the result would be uniform.
Amazing story.
Makes me wonder how the producers of the X-files missed this one. Seems like a natural for them.
Also, fascinating for the sheer decency and dignity of the people involved.
pingggggggggggg
"They were bluer'n hell," Cawein says. "Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. After concluding that there was no evidence of heart disease, I said 'Aha!' I started asking them questions: 'Do you have any relatives who are blue?' then I sat down and we began to chart the family."That's kind of a personal question.
They are a food source for the purple people eater. Everyone used to think the people eater was purple; turns out he eat purple people.
Fascinating! I don't quite understand the cure, but if it works I guess it's OK. :)
OK you have me stumped. What is methylene blue and how can it serve as an antidote to cyanide? (which I always thought was almost instantly fatal.)
Don't laugh. One of them lives in Seattle.
Okay, I see you found the thread.
LOL! I was googling and found this. Quite an interesting article. I remember reading this in Science 82.
Yup. I'm suprised how many old articles I've posted I run into while googling.
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Are there any pictures of these people? Is this related to the term “blue baby?” I don’t know what that is.
:’) Nope. There really is a blue baby syndrome, but that has to do with respiration I guess.
Love it!
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By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES | Good Morning America
Tue, Feb 21, 2012
Benjamin "Benjy" Stacy so frightened maternity doctors with the color of his skin -- "as Blue as Lake Louise" -- that he was rushed just hours after his birth in 1975 to University of Kentucky Medical Center.
As a transfusion was being readied, the baby's grandmother suggested to doctors that he looked like the "blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek." Relatives described the boy's great-grandmother Luna Fugate as "blue all over," and "the bluest woman I ever saw."
In an unusual story that involves both genetics and geography, an entire family from isolated Appalachia was tinged blue. Their ancestral line began six generations earlier with a French orphan, Martin Fugate, who settled in Eastern Kentucky.
Doctors don't see much of the rare blood disorder today, because mountain people have dispersed and the family gene pool is much more diverse.
But the Fugates' story still offers a window into a medical mystery that was solved through modern genetics and the sleuth-like energy of Dr. Madison Cawein III, a hematologist at the University of Kentucky's Lexington Medical Clinic.
Cawein died in 1985, but his family charts and blood samples led to a sharper understanding of the recessive diseases that only surface if both parents carry a defective gene.
The most detailed account, "Blue People of Troublesome Creek," was published in 1982 by the University of Indiana's Cathy Trost, who described Benjy's skin as "almost purple."
The Fugate progeny had a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which was passed down through a recessive gene and blossomed through intermarriage.
"It's a fascinating story," said Dr. Ayalew Tefferi, a hematologist from Minnesota's Mayo Clinic. "It also exemplifies the intersection between disease and society, and the danger of misinformation and stigmatization."
Methemoglobinemia is a blood disorder in which an abnormal amount of methemoglobin -- a form of hemoglobin -- is produced, according to the National Institutes for Health. Hemoglobin is responsible for distributing oxygen to the body and without oxygen, the heart, brain and muscles can die.
(snip)
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