Alexei and Hemophilia
ChristineM:
Dear Penny
I stand corrected and bow to your scientific knowledge. I am sure you will agree re the original question 'Alexei's haemophilia and the Royal Houses - the House of Windsor need no longer worry about falling prey to the curse of haemophilia.
I think the point that this dreadful disease, uniting two august sisters in fear and grief, underlines the frailty and vulnerability of all humankind.
tsaria
jehan:
Quote
As far as I know the disease was never mentioned in the family.
Queen Victoria used to say : "This disease does not exist in our family".
In all fairness, while I have read this quote in QV bios, one has to put it in context. The Queen was not in denial, but stated this after her son Leopold was born and she was told of his disease. And she was right- at that point, there HAD been nobody else with haemophilia in her family, as far as anyone knew.
Certainly it was discussed frequently in letters to and from Alice, Vicky and others. usually as "this awful disease". While it was not announced publicly, it was certainly something the family was aware of, and it was NOT ignored.
(My first post here, although I have been lurking for a while!)
Olga:
Is it fairly certain then that OTMA Nikolaevna were carriers?
Penny_Wilson:
Quote
Is it fairly certain then that OTMA Nikolaevna were carriers?
No, I don't think it's at all certain that any of the girls were carriers, though statistically speaking, half of them should have been. Alexandra had one X(h) chromosome(from Alice) and one X chromosome(from Ludwig as his family did not have this condition). Nicholas had an uneffected XY set of chromosomes:
XY
XX(h)
So the girls could have been XX or XX(h).
If the family was extraordinarily lucky, then no daughter would have inherited the X(h) chromosome -- if they were extremely unlucky, then all of them would have had it.
As far as I know, we just don't know if any of them was a carrier, though Marie's bleeding difficulties during her tonsillectomy have led some to believe that she could have been a "symptomatic carrier," meaning that while she herself didn't have hemophilia, she was a carrier who exhibited in herself some of the symptoms.
ptitchka:
Poor Alexei, if he had lived to marry! :'( Imagine his pain if he lived long enough to see one of his grandsons suffer from what he'd known he'd pass on.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page