Somebody with only one gene would not have the condition but could pass the gene to a child. While the substance isnt harmful, large amounts of it will tint any tissue that has blood flowing to it a blue color. Some say 99%. Blood is also likely to be a chocolate brown color instead of bright red in patients with methemoglobinemia. Stacy courted her, married her, and moved over from Troublesome Creek to make a living in timber on her daddys land. Martin married a red-headed American woman named Elizabeth Smith and the two set up a homestead on the banks of Troublesome Creek near Hazard County, Kentucky. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. 2,999 100 . Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. get your facts straight for petes sake. My grandmother Luna on my dads side was a blue Fugate. Excise tax on bottled soft drinks, syrups and dry mixtures; disposition thereof. Scott's research had found hereditary methemoglobinemia among Alaskan Eskimos and Indians caused by an absence of the enzyme diaphorase from their red blood cells. Dern it, Princeton. By the time a young hematologist from the University of Kentucky came down to Troublesome Creek in the 1960s to cure the blue people, Martin Fugates descendants had multiplied their recessive genes all over the Cumberland Plateau. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. Population: 5,258Walmart rank: 1stChew factor: 1stAmmo per capita: 9th. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. Two YouTubers have shared an inside look into Odd as they documented themselves traveling down a windy two-lane road. 1:52. The man who discovered the cure for methemoglobinemia was Madison Cawein III, a hematologist (blood doctor) at the University of Kentucky who heard tales of the "blue people" and went looking for specimens in the 1960s. And at least in one famous case, a man turned his skin permanently blue from drinking too much colloidal silver supplements and rubbing colloidal silver cream on his skin (the condition is called argyria or silver poisoning). The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. At 55%, people may feel extremely lethargic and go in and out of consciousness. Matt Harvey West Virginia's population has grown very slowly since the 1950s, at many times losing people . Faris, David. it is a blood disorder in which their blood does not oxygenate correctly. Wingspan: 6.3-8.3 in (Black-Capped), 5.9-7.9 in (Carolina) Chickadees are tiny little birds that are very easy to recognize because of their "black cap" and black bib. Those who are otherwise healthy with levels under 15% may exhibit minor symptoms or none at all. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. The doctor was recently approached by the producers of the television show Thats Incredible. They wanted to parade the blue people across the screen in their weekly display of human oddities. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. Many of us have college degrees, are nurses, teachers, preachers and well-educated women. Wait. Google Maps, KCR Barrel Saloon, Charles Town, WV. Where people wear camo to church. Funding was made available through a $75 million facilities bond, $25 million in private donations through the Mountaineer Athletic Club and $6 million from West Virginia's multimedia rights contract with IMG. She had been out in the cold and she was just blue! recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. He found references to methemoglobinemia dating to the turn of the century, but it wasnt until he came across E. M. Scotts 1960 report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (vol. Buckhannon is a town thats 95% white, where 3 out of 10 people didnt graduate from high school. Theyre normal people theyre good people. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith who had a very pale complexion and their union formed a genetic mutation that resulted in their descendants being born with blue skin. Benjy was a pretty big item in the hospital, his mother says with a grin. One came from a blue Flugate whod joined the Army and been sent to Panama, where his son was born bright blue. Thankfully, Benjy lost his blue shade after a few weeks and the only lingering effects were blue fingernails and lips when he was cold or angry. As it was, the Fugates stayed in the same area well into the 20th century. Cawein would have no part of it, and he related with glee the news that a film crew sent to Kentucky from Hollywood fled the two mean dogs in every front yard without any film. It wasn't always this way. astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen, [are neither] unique [n]or particularly common to the region. The odds against it were incalculable, but Martin Fugate managed to find and marry a woman who carried the same recessive gene. Because the Fugate family lived in such an isolated part of the Kentucky, they intermarried with a neighboring family for generations which led to a relatively pure gene pool where the met-H gene appeared much more frequently. Since rail lines and paved roads didn't make it out to Troublesome Creek for nearly a century, the blue recessive gene was passed down to generations of Fugates and neighboring families, all of whom came to be known as "the blue people of Kentucky.". Theyre prominently featured in reality television. Its true that, through the 19th century, transportation networks developed slowly in the rugged, westernmost portion of Virginia (incorporated as West Virginia in 1863). Stacy counts Fugate blood in his own veins. Embarrassed by their bluish hue, the families retreated even further from society, which only exacerbated the problem. By the time theyd get to the top, the person would be gone. Mary (Dawley) Fugate, who answers quite a few queries and also helped compile the genealogy book, indicates that the siblings of Martin Fugate were not blue but he must have been a carrier. For the record, West Virginia has strict anti-incest laws. In 1980, anthropologist Robert Tincher published a study titled Night Comes to the Chromosomes: Inbreeding and Population Genetics in Southern Appalachia, based on 140 years worth of marriage records. Benjy Stacy is one of the last of the blue Fugates. GreenPower Motor Co. to begin manufacturing at South Charleston, West Virginia facility 'this quarter' Hot and cold: Up and down weather calls for adaptation for West Virginia's ski destinations; Morgantown (West Virginia) business owner who pleaded guilty to Jan. 6 charges sued along with Trump; This Week in West Virginia History 20 Fine Arts Drive, Morgantown, WV 26506. https://artmuseum.wvu.edu. In the Inuit communities, scientists had pinpointed the problem, a deficiency of an enzyme that converted methemoglobin to hemoglobin. Before Cawein ended his study of the blue people, he returned to the mountains to patch together the long and twisted journey of Martin Fugates recessive gene. by Cathy TrostScience82, November, 1982. Benjy was born in a maternity ward near Hazard, Kentucky and was rushed by ambulance to a medical clinic in Lexington to find help for his blue problem. One of them even married his own aunt, and most of them had a lot of children who also married their cousins. Research on intrafamilial marriage in such enclaves is slim. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. In another neighborhood of this rust-belt city of 46,000, Pam and Ted Keesee have their own. Such people tend to be very blue only at birth, probably because newborns normally have smaller amounts of diaphorase. 2019 Foreign-Born Population 30.2k people As of 2020, 1.64% of West Virginia residents (29.6k people) were born outside of the United States, which is lower than the national average of 13.5%. Diet: Insects, seeds, and grains. T he West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has emerged as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the passing of Joe Biden's ambitious domestic agenda, declaring he will vote against a key voting. They were bluern hell, Cawein says. His lips and fingernails still turn a shade of purple-blue when he gets cold or angry a quirk that so intrigued medical students after Benjys birth that they would crowd around the baby and try to make him cry. Other people in the region knew the family well, and most were related to them, so seeing blue people and marrying them did not seem unusual to the locals. Some of the blue people thought the doctor was slightly addled for suggesting that a blue dye could turn them pink. 39, 1960) that the answer began to emerge. Then he began to construct the family genealogy and traced their roots back to Martin and Elizabeth Fugate. The Blue People of Kentucky were first diagnosed with methemoglobinemia in the 1960s by Dr. Madison Cawein, a noted hematologist. So I brought back the new blood and set up my enzyme assay, Cawein continued. The range of blue that could express itself in the blue Fugates ranged from light blue to dark blue like a blueberry, with even darker blue on the lips and fingernail beds. Most of the Fugates didnt seem to mind being blue. Over time, fewer and fewer babies were born blue, and those who were took a methylene blue pill once a day to put the pink back in their cheeks. She was as blue a woman as I ever saw.. That total makes West Virginia the 38th most populous state in the country. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. Aside from the stark discoloration of the carriers skin, there are no serious problems associated with the disease. RoadSnacks is reader-supported. Cawein, Madison and E.J. Martin Fugate carried the recessive gene and the odds that he could have married a woman with the same recessive gene were overwhelming - but that is exactly what happened. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos Yes, West Virginia is among the poorest if not the poorest state in the union as well as one of the most uneducated and least economically developed. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. Sometimes, it can be really faint though, so you have to look closely at their lips or fingernails. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. She looked like she was having a heart attack. I couldnt tell you what caused it.. Blood cells always looked so beautiful to me, he says. He injected the Ritchie siblings with 100 milligrams of the blue dye and didn't have to wait long to see results. Chapter 1: The Climate of Post-War America Chapter 2: West Virginia - The Violent Heritage Chapter 3: Political Maneuvering Chapter 4: The Creative Act of 1919 Chapter 5: Getting Organized PART II Chapter 6: The Mine Wars, 1919-1929 Chapter 7: Depression and Recovery, 1929-1939 Chapter 8: War Service, 1939-1949 This then turns the carriers blood into a normal red hue which is then reflected in a change in skin tone. However, it has the ability to change the blue hemoglobin back to a normal color, and remove the blue tone from their skin almost instantly. Her lips were as dark as a bruise. In more recent memory, the 2003 film Wrong Turn helped perpetuate the inbreeding stereotype. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508) Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. She lives alone in one of the. Benjamin Stacy was the last of the Fugate family members to have blue skin and lived a healthy life. It like to scared me to death! Cut off from contact with the wider population, they married cousins, aunts and other closely related kin, which greatly increased the odds of inheriting the condition. Incredibly, Benjy had inherited a gene dating back over 162 years! Cawein drew lots of blood from the Ritchies and hurried back to his lab. They went over to Patrick and Rachel Ritchies house and injected each of them with 100 milligrams of methylene blue. Add to calendar. By Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh Fast Facts Nickname: The Mountain State Statehood: 1863; 35th state Population (as of July, 2016): 1,831,102. These people arent related to the Fugates: Also fake. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. Born Jan. 16, 1869, in Marion County, Ephraim Franklin Morgan went on to become one of West Virginia's governors. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. "The True Story of the Blue People of Kentucky" It can be brought on by several things: abnormal hemoglobin formation, an enzyme deficiency, and taking too much of certain drugs, including vitamin K, which is essential for blood clotting and is abundant in pork liver and vegetable oil. West Virginians became the prototypical hillbillies, and incest served as a crude scientific explanation for their downtrodden social condition. In alphabetical order, these counties are: Barbour, Berkeley, Boone, Braxton, Brooke, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Fayette, Gilmer, Grant, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Lincoln, Logan, Marion, Marshall, Mason, McDowell, Mercer, Mineral, Mingo, Monongalia, Monroe, Morgan, Nicholas, Ohio, The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friends birthday. score: 5 of 27 (18%) required scores: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 list stats leaders vote Vote print comments. This small enclave was no longer isolated and they began to disperse and marry outside of their little clan diminishing the effect of the "blue" gene. Well, there are more intriguing blue things in Kentucky than just the moon. So, youd think people who are rednecks would be proud to be called a redneck. Comet C/2022 E3 was first discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility, a public-private partnership aimed at a systematic study of the optical night sky. Cawein, in researching the family lines in Perry County, Kentucky and with the help of Fugate Family Bibles, found in fact, that the Fugates had married Fugates, had married first cousins, and had intermarried with families whose surnames were: Combs, Smith, Ritchie, and Stacy. 702 ft (214 m) Time zone: UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) Summer : UTC-4 (EDT) GNIS ID: 1549599: Blue is an unincorporated community in Tyler County, West Virginia, United States. She and her husband Alva have a strong sense of family. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. The condition is called methemoglobinemia, which is a disorder that reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and body tissues, therefore making the skin appear blue. 8 November 2021. A mutated gene causes their bodies to build up a rare form of hemoglobin called methemoglobin that can't bond with oxygen. His car gave out on the dirt road to Zachs house, and the doctor had to borrow a Jeep from a filling station. Oh, and they had blue skin. Of their seven children, four were blue. Old color photographs of the family clearly show about half of the members to have a distinct cobalt blue skin color, while the other have regular white skin color. We do not feel less-fortunate. Scott, E.M. The relation of diaphorase of human erythrocytes to inheritance of methemolglobinemia, Journal of Clinical Investigation, 39, 1960.3. Six generations after a French orphan named Martin Fugate settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys 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. But his first love, which he developed as an Army medical technician in World War II, was hematology. Martin and Elizabeth set up housekeeping on the banks of Troublesome and began a family. Well, as you can imagine, I really examined them. I can see that old blue running out of my skin, he confided. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. But as Kentucky became more populated and more genes came into the Fugate family tree, there were far fewer children born blue. The only thing Stacy cant or wont remember is that his wife Luna was blue. 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