When Ida Muia Donnelly was born 24 years ago in Montrose, Pa., she had two strikes against her: from both mother & father (who were first cousins), she had a heritage of Mediterranean anemia, in which the red blood cells are abnormally thin. Ida had a doubly severe case of the disease, which afflicts (generally mildly) many Italians, Greeks, Syrians and Armenians, and their U.S.-born offspring.
Mediterranean anemia cannot be cured by iron treatments or removal of the spleen; it can only be relieved by transfusions of blood containing husky red cells. With good care and many transfusions, Ida grew up...
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