African homozygous sickle-cell disease

In 1922,V R. Mason (Mason, 1992) published a case review in the Journal of the American Medical Association entitled Sickle Cell Anemia, and the homozygous condition has since then been referred to by the description of the shape of the red cells seen by Dr. Irons a decade earlier In his review article, Dr. Mason promulgated the misconception that this disease was exclusively seen in persons of African origin. In 1923, Sydenstricked and colleagues reviewed the cases of two children with sickle cell disease and observed the blood smears of Caucasian and African Americans and concluded, with Mason, that sickle cell anemia was a condition peculiar to people of African descent. Neel (1949) reviewed blood smears of families with sickle cell disease over a 2-year period and correctly concluded that sickle cell anemia was a disease with Mendelian inheritance. 

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