Oval Blood Cells in Human Subjects Tested for Linkage With Taste for Ptc, Mid-Digital Hair, Hair Color, a-B Agglutinogens, and Sex

FIELD study was undertaken in 1939 by WYANDT in order to A collect human pedigrees showing oval red blood cells. The rare but non-pathological condition of elliptical erythrocytes was apparently known in medicine even before the first published account which we have been able to locate (DRESBACH 1904)~ but its hereditary nature was not well established until 1929 (HUNTER and ADAMS). CHENEY (1932) first reported the trait to be a simple Mendelian dominant on the basis of a threegeneration pedigree, and STRAUSS and DALAND (1937) furnished confirmation from another three-generation pedigree. Several other cases of familial elliptocytosis have been reported subsequently. In a forthcoming paper WYANDT will publish pedigrees on oval cells in three family lines involving more than a hundred individuals. Her investigation confirms the dominant mode of unit inheritance suggested by previous less extensive studies.