Hirszfeld* and the Abo Blood Groups
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Br J Prev Soc Med: first published as 10.1136/jech.17.4.166 on 1 October 1963. Downloaded from Brit. J. prev. soc. Med. (1963), 17, 166-171 HIRSZFELD* AND THE ABO BLOOD GROUPS BY T. M. ALLAN Aberdeen and North-East Scotland Blood Transfusion Service, Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen The importance of Ludwik Hirszfeld's contribu- years later Hirszfeld and his wife (1919a, b, c) tions to our knowledge of the ABO blood group recorded the ABO blood group incidence in 8,000 system has been affirmed in various ways: by Karl soldiers and refugees on the Macedonian Front, and Landsteiner (1931) in his Nobel Address, by Hirsz- the hair colour of 1,000 French and British soldiers. feld's election to the Presidency of the Blood Group No correlations were found between hair colour and Section of the Second International Congress of the blood groups but, broadly speaking, the results Protected by copyright. Blood Transfusion (Paris, 1937), and by the naming showed a fall in the incidence of blood group A from in his memory of the Hirszfeld Microbiological Western Europe to India, and of blood group B Institute in Wroclaw (Milgrom, 1954). Despite this, from India to Western Europe. however, one very important part of his work on the The Hirszfelds concluded that the most likely blood groups still awaits appreciation and even cause of this East-to-West reciprocity was that a recognition-namely, his early, explicit awareness mainly A race and a mainly B race had developed, of the relevance of the ABO genes to natural by mutation from 0, in the West and East res- selection. Accordingly, an attempt is made in this pectively, and had since become mixed by migration communication to draw together his various com- or conquest and subsequent intermarriage. But ments on the subject, under headings of Climate, before they reached this conclusion the Hirszfelds Age and Sex, Social Class, Disease, and Race. put forward a much more interesting suggestion: "A is more suitable for increased resistance of the CLIMATE organism to disease in a temperate climate, while B In 1900 Mendel's principles of heredity, un- is more suitable in a hot climate". The perceptiveness http://jech.bmj.com/ appreciated since 1866, were published afresh in the of this remark is seen from an authoritative state- three main languages of science-in French by de ment made forty years later by Sheppard (1959a): Vries (1900a, b), in German by de Vries (1900c), Correns (1900a, b, c), and Tschermak (1900), and "In the long run selection due to changes in the as late as external environment will alter the gene pool and there- in English by Bateson (1900, 1901)-but fore the selective value for the different blood group 1909 Bateson had to report that "Of Mendelian in- genotypes.... There is, however, some evidence that the heritance of normal characteristics in man there is as environment can, on occasion, play a more direct role in on September 27, 2021 by guest. yet but little evidence" (author's italics). Almost altering the selective values of the various allelomorphs of immediately after this, however, von Dungern and the ABO locus. In every thorough investigation of Hirszfeld (1910, 1911) were able to show, from a polymorphism maintained by selection it has been shown study of the families of the teaching staff at Heidel- that the selective values of the phenotypes change berg University, that the principles of Mendelism markedly from place to place and from time to time. Thus apply to the normal human serological characteris- if the ABO blood groups are maintained by selection it Landsteiner 10 would be unreasonable to postulate that the selection tics discovered by (1900, 1901) years pressures are the same everywhere." (See also Sheppard, before, characteristics which they proceeded to 1959b.) name the blood groups AB, A, B, and O.t Eight t Their paper of 1910 has recently been translated into English- * This is the Polish spelling. Early publications use the German see Transfusion (1962), 2, 70-as one of the "Historical Milestones" spelling Hirschfeld (see References). series. 166 Br J Prev Soc Med: first published as 10.1136/jech.17.4.166 on 1 October 1963. Downloaded from HIRSZFELD AND THE ABO BLOOD GROUPS 167 Furthermore, if the Hirszfelds' environmental 1 04 (119 :104)-and they declared that "if this hypothesis were well-founded, one would expect the finding were confirmed it would have far-reaching high Indian incidence of B, which was one of the theoretical significance". Unfortunately, however, no pillars of that hypothesis, to be characteristic not reference to Hirszfeld and Zborowski's observation only of the Indian (Caucasoid) race but also of the was made in the monographs of Snyder (1929), Mongolian race, and this is found to be so. Indeed, Lattes (1929), Steffan (1932), Schiff (1933), and Mourant (1954) has drawn attention to the remark- Wiener (1935), or in the lengthy reviews of Levine able fact that the regions in which the incidence of B (1928), Witebsky (1932), and Holzer (1935), and the is highest of all in both races are those in which their matter lay undisturbed for 26 years. * Eventually the territories adjoin, and he even suggests that this subject was brought to life again by Sanghvi (1951), phenomenon may indicate environmental selection. who, in a series of 2,200 New York and Bombay Buettner-Janusch (1959) goes still further along the babies, found a significantly higher male-to-female same lines by pointing out that the Hirszfelds' ratio for 0 babies of 0 mothers than for A babies of East-to-West fall in the ratio of B to A "follows A mothers-a finding confirmed by several large certain relatively consistent changes in altitude and series in 1954-59 (Allan, 1959). This ironically sug- environment", and Huxley (1960) has suggested, on gests that, if Hirszfeld and Zborowski had enlarged general grounds, that "Well-defined clines in- their series of newborn babies to even as much as explicable by ABO gene-diffusion are a possibility to half the size of the Hirszfelds' own 1919 series of be borne in mind". In fact the view is now widely 8,000 adults, they might have anticipated Sanghvi's held that one of the functions of a morphic system finding and failed to confirm their own. As it is, their like that of the ABO genes may be to extend the own finding has now been partly confirmed on fairly environmental range of the species in which it large numbers, for in the aggregate of all known occurs (Huxley, 1955), and that, in the words of series of white babies so far reported (Allan, 1959) Protected by copyright. Dobzhansky (1955), "Genetic variability is a means the ratio of male to female babies is significantly whereby Mendelian populations master environ- higher for the babies of AB mothers than for those of mental diversity". See also Levene (1953), Wad- non-AB mothers-i.e. 1 26 (667 : 531) compared to dington (1957), and Dobzhansky (1960). 1-08 (16,130 :14,982). In this connexion it is interesting that Hirszfeld and Zborowski (1926) also found a shortage of AGE AND SEX group 0 female offspring from the mating class Though the Hirszfelds at once rejected their own O fathers by A mothers and a shortage of group A hypothesis that "A is more suitable for increased female offspring from the mating class A fathers by resistance of the organism to disease in a temperate O mothers, and also that this finding has nearly climate, while B is more suitable in a hot climate", always been misrepresented (Obituary Notice, 1954; the basic idea exemplified in it-i.e. that the ABO Allan, 1954). genes have selective value-very soon became a http://jech.bmj.com/ familiar and productive one. As well as leading to SOCIAL CLASS many investigations, especially in Finland, of the Though the Hirszfelds rejected their own hypo- relationship of the blood groups to particular thesis that the A and B genes might have different diseases it also prompted investigations of the selective values under different climatic conditions, relationship of the blood groups to longevity. Thus Hirszfeld suggested 9 years later (1928) that the a series of 1,000 post mortem subjects in Munich selective values of the ABO genes might differ in the (Oppenheim and Voigt, 1926; Lutzeler and Dor- different social classes, with their varying environ- manns, 1929) led the authors to suggest that B mental stresses. Thus, in commenting on the results on September 27, 2021 by guest. individuals might have, on average, the longest life- of his blood grouping of 1,200 Warsaw school- span, and Hirszfeld (1928) considered the same children, he remarked that "the table shows a rather possibility on the basis of a series of 3,000 old people higher percentage of group B children in the State living in Copenhagen (Thomsen, 1927; Hansen, schools. How easy it would be to relate this cir- 1928). cumstance to some disease or other with a mainly Meanwhile, at the other end of the age-scale, working-class incidence!" Whether or not the Hirszfeld and Zborowski (1925) had blood-grouped exclamation mark means that this time Hirszfeld 264 newborn babies and their mothers. They found that the was very male-to-female ratio much higher * Oppenhoim and Voigt may have known of the finding, for for the babies of AB mothers than for those of Hirszfeld (1926) writes of their having told him in conversation that in their series of 500 Munich post mortem cases there were only four non-AB mothers-i.e.