Sickle-Cell Anemia

“Because the malady seemed to have broad implications for understanding the African American condition, many scholars felt compelled to extend their particular analyses of the disease . . . to touch upon questions of sweeping social significance – racial identity, black inheritance, and the problem of pain. . . . by the late 1960s, such discoveries and the problem of pain relief were being challenged by calls for more immediate, tangible, therapeutic results. Scientific understanding [at the level of individual hemoglobin cells], it seems, was not enough. . . . The pathology came to highlight not only the existence of pain, but also the problems inherent in pursuing a scientific understanding without also having immediate strategies for pain relief” (Wailoo III, 162).