The Fugate family of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, regularly became inbreeding with their relatives while living in an isolated community.
The Fugate family had a rare genetic disease that turned their skin blue (
Image: Youtube)
An incestuous family was so inbreeding that their skin turned blue after a rare genetic condition was passed down through the generations.
The Fugate family of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky regularly became inbreeding with their relatives while living in an isolated rural community.
Inbreeding began in 1820 when Martin Fugate and his wife Elizabeth Smart met in the remote Appalachia area of Perry County Kentucky.
Mr. Fugate had a very rare and unusual genetic defect called methemoglobinemia, which affects only 0.0035 percent of the world’s population.
The condition means that the blood does not carry enough oxygen to the body as it normally should, and as a result, the blood turns brown due to the lack of oxygen-carrying red blood cells.
As a result, the skin of white patients turns blue and their lips turn purple for some people.
The family lived in an isolated rural community that caused regular interbreeding (
Image:
Youtube)
When Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four of them were born with blue skin due to the recessive methemoglobinemia gene.
However, because the gene was recessive, the condition would not have affected future children if they had not married within their own family.
But because the family lived in such a rural interior, the Fungates did not mingle and met other people and married their cousins.
They had families in the small community with the Combs, the Richies, the Smiths and the Stacy.
Her skin turned blue due to generations of incest (
Image:
Youtube)
Zacharia, one of Martin and Elizabeth’s children, strangely married her own aunt and another son married a close cousin.
Later, another child would also marry his cousin, as Luna Fugate was known as the bluest member of the family, who was described as having “dark lips like a bruise.”
She married John Stacy in the late 19th century and had 13 children together.
Although the rare condition of methemoglobinemia can cause developmental disorders and seizures, it did not affect the family, as Luna lived to be 84 years old.
And her children were said to be healthy despite her blue appearance.
Because the gene was recessive, the condition would not have affected future children if they had not married within their own family (
Image:
Youtube)
Her very unusual story attracted the interest of Dr. Madison Cawein, a blood expert at the University of Kentucky, who was fascinated with the family.
In the 1960’s, he left to try to locate them and was able to meet some of the survivors of the Fugate family while assessing their condition.
He said the family’s blood was missing a key enzyme and believed that injecting them with the blue dye, methylene, could make a difference.
Notably, in a few days the blue skin disappeared, but it only lasted a couple of days.
However, Dr. Cawein encouraged the family to take daily methylene tablets to help with their illness.
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