The Woman Who Walked into the Sea

The Woman Who Walked into the Sea: Huntington's and the Making of a Genetic Disease [Kindle Edition]

Author: Alice Wexler | Language: English | ISBN: B0026IUP5O | Format: PDF, EPUB

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The Woman Who Walked into the Sea: Huntington's and the Making of a Genetic Disease
Direct download links available The Woman Who Walked into the Sea: Huntington's and the Making of a Genetic Disease for everyone book 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link "When Phebe Hedges, a woman in East Hampton, New York, walked into the sea in 1806, she made visible the historical experience of a family affected by the dreaded disorder of movement, mind, and mood her neighbors called St.Vitus's dance. Doctors later spoke of Huntington’s chorea, and today it is known as Huntington's disease. This book is the first history of Huntington’s in America.



Starting with the life of Phebe Hedges, Alice Wexler uses Huntington’s as a lens to explore the changing meanings of heredity, disability, stigma, and medical knowledge among ordinary people as well as scientists and physicians. She addresses these themes through three overlapping stories: the lives of a nineteenth-century family once said to “belong to the disease”; the emergence of Huntington’s chorea as a clinical entity; and the early-twentieth-century transformation of this disorder into a cautionary eugenics tale. In our own era of expanding genetic technologies, this history offers insights into the social contexts of medical and scientific knowledge, as well as the legacy of eugenics in shaping both the knowledge and the lived experience of this disease." Books with free ebook downloads available The Woman Who Walked into the Sea: Huntington's and the Making of a Genetic Disease

• File Size: 2632 KB
• Print Length: 288 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (September 30, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0026IUP5O
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray:
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• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #155,196 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #14 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Genetic
  • #39 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Diseases & Physical Ailments > Genetic
  • #48 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Nervous System

Read through the media, and you'll find all sorts of opinions about what diseases deserve more research dollars. Sadly, I can't recall any major media pieces in recent years stressing the need for more focus on Huntington's disease. While it may be a rare condition, there is no illness I can think of that creates more dread in those at risk for developing it and creates more havoc on those who do develop it. Significantly more resources and compassion are needed to fight this illness.

The quick facts:

1) A child born to a parent with Huntington's disease has a 50% chance of developing the illness later in life (if the child inherits a mutant form of the Huntington's gene from his/her parent, he/she has approximately 100% odds of developing the disease later in life).
2) Symptoms of Huntington's disease often develop around age 30 or later--after one has already had children--and late enough in life so that the children can see what happens to their affected parent.
3) Huntington's disease causes an progressive, unrelenting movement disorder (chorea) with progressive mental decline and death.
4) In the past (and no doubt today, too), patients with Huntington's disease and their blood relatives have been stigmitized and ostracized. Within the past century, attempts (some successful) have been made to sterilize patients and prevent them from marrying (in Germany and the US).
5) The disease may be so stigmitizing and physically destructive that children of Huntington's patients who start to develop symptoms are at risk for suicide. In fact, this book is based upon the story of a woman who develops symptoms and literally walks into the sea to end her life.

The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea: Huntington's and the Making of a Genetic Disease
By Alice Wexler

I’m at the time of my life where I read books that I think that I’ll enjoy versus the time in college where I had to read books there is no earthly way I’d even consider casting my eyes over. Armed with fantastic reviews fueling great anticipation, I dove into Alice Wexler’s The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea. While I found it a decent read and a book I felt compelled to finish reading, my impression once I’d finished reading it was, “Meh.”

And that surprised me. I mean, when it comes to Huntington ’s disease, the Wexler family is first and foremost. The Hereditary Disease Foundation was started by Alice’s father Dr. Milton Wexler after he discovered that his wife, Alice’s mother, had inherited and subsequently died from the disease. Alice’s sister Nancy is best known for her discovery of the location of the Huntington’s gene. When it comes to any discourse on Huntington’s Disease, the Wexlers are usually central to any discussion.

Back to the book. After my reaction to this book bubbled to the surface, I decided I should examine why I felt this way. I guess it comes from the fact that the book was touted in the medical history community as the book on Huntington’s Disease (or Huntington’s Chorea, which is the term I grew up with). This book is a history of the disease but not necessarily with a purely medical history angle. After all, Alice Wexler is a PhD in history, so her focus would not necessarily be with the medical aspects as much as the disease’s place in history as well as its effect on the families.

The beginning of The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea examines the woman in the title and generations of her family prior and after her.

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