Genetic prophecy : beyond the double helix / Zsolt Harsanyi, Richard Hutton.

  • Harsanyi, Zsolt, 1944-
Date:
[1981], ©1981
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Genetic prophecy : beyond the double helix / Zsolt Harsanyi, Richard Hutton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/360 (page 12)
    GENETIC PROPHECY: BEYOND THE DOUBLE HELIX dried and saved so that they can be eaten in winter. For many, the fava bean is a tasty, nutritious part of the diet. But even in pre-Christian times the bean had its de¬ tractors. The Greek philosopher and rehgious reformer Pythagoras, for instance, barred his followers from eating it, or even from walking through fields in which it was growing. He kept the reasons for this prohibition to himself. By 1900, people had begun to understand why the fava bean had been getting such bad press over the years. While the bean was perfectly fine for some to eat, for others it was turning out to be as deadly as a stick of dynamite. * * * * For centuries, schoolteachers on the Mediterranean is¬ land of Sardinia have witnessed a curious phenomenon. Every February as spring arrives, some of their students sud¬ denly seem drained of energy. For the next three months, their schoolwork suffers. They complain of dizziness and nausea and fall asleep at their desks. Then, just as suddenly, they return to normal and remain healthy and active until the next February rolls around. In some countries, such incidents would be ascribed to boredom, spring fever, or a massive, collaborative effort to disrupt the learning process. But Sardinian adults suffer from similar symptoms; and while some merely feel a strange lethargy, others die after urinating quantities of blood. At times, as many as 35 percent of the islanders have suffered from this phenomenon. In the early 1950s, scientists with no special interest in the Sardinians' particular problem came to the island to study its people. For them, Sardinia presented a special op¬ portunity. Its isolated location to the west of Italy, its poor [ 12 ]