The purpose of this study was to continue the work started in determining the incidence of the Rh factor among Indians of the Southwest and review the related literature. This paper will include the author's initial results in which 251 Indians were tested.
There is at this time no published account on the incidence of the Rh factor among the Indians of the Southwest; therefore, this is important from the standpoint of originality. The problem has medical importance in the role which Rh plays in transfusion and congenital hemolytic disease, otherwise known as erythroblastosis fetalis. The results will serve as an additional piece of work for anthropological application based on blood factors but this study does not itself furnish the tool of anthropological applications. Much more work has been done on the Landstiener blood groups than on the Rh factor concerning racial distribution, but the results of the former studies as yet cannot be used by anthropologists with conclusiveness in tracing migration patterns of peoples.
Rh Factor, Southwest Native Americans
Level of Degree
UNM Biology Department
First Committee Member (Chair)
Second Committee Member
Third Committee Member
Alton A. Lindsey
Gerheim, Earl B.. "The Rh Factor: Recent Developments and a Study of its Incidence Among the Indians of the Southwest." (1946). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/biol_etds/162