An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16061 entries, 14144 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: December 10, 2024

ALLISON, Anthony Clifford

1 entries
  • 11887

Protection afforded by sickle-cell trait against subtertian malarial infection.

Brit. med. J., 1, 290-294, 1954.

Allison was the first to connect a hereditary disease (sickle cell disease) to an infectious disease (malaria). He proved that heterozygous and homozygous individuals to the sickle cell trait or disease respectively show a resistance to malarial illness which allows them to survive while others die. The sickle cell individuals then survive to puberty, reproduce and pass down their ‘beneficial’ trait. Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

In 1956 Allison published a semi-popular version of this research as "Sickle cells and evolution," Scientific American, 195 (1956) 87-94.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

In 2014 Allison was interviewed concerning his sickle cell research in this video from hhmi biointeractive:

 



Subjects: EVOLUTION, GENETICS / HEREDITY › HEREDITARY / CONGENITAL DISEASES OR DISORDERS › Blood Disorders › Sickle-Cell Disease, INFECTIOUS DISEASE › VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES › Mosquito-Borne Diseases › Malaria