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The Diego Blood Factor in Negroid Populations

Abstract

A GREAT number of the Negroes brought to South American shores during Colonial times came from West Africa (Gold Coast, Guinea, Dahomey, Nigeria, etc.)1. These Negroes mixed in large proportion with Indians and Caucasoids, mainly Spaniards and Portuguese. The racial intermixture was so intense that to-day it is almost impossible to find a pure Negro population in any South American country, including Venezuela. Indian admixture was assumed by Layrisse and Arends2 as an explanation of the eleven Diego-positive cases found in 150 random adult Negro inhabitants of Curiepe, a village in the State of Miranda, Venezuela.

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References

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LAYRISSE, M., ARENDS, T. The Diego Blood Factor in Negroid Populations. Nature 179, 478–479 (1957). https://doi.org/10.1038/179478b0

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