An autopsy survey of 1,010 Bantu South African coal-miners has been carried out in order to ascertain the commonest causes of death and the incidence of cardiorespiratory tuberculosis and of coal-workers' pneumoconiosis. These are consecutive autopsy cases. By law, all miners who die from any cause whatsoever, while still employed by the mines immediately before death, must be autopsied, but fe...

Within-population genetic diversity is greatest within Africa, while between-population genetic diversity is directly proportional to geographic distance. The most divergent contemporary human populations include the click-speaking forager peoples of southern Africa, broadly defined as Khoesan. Both intra- (Bantu expansion) and inter-continental migration (European-driven colonization) have res...

Serum lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) and its correlates were studied in African Aboriginal Pygmies (n = 146) and Bantus (n = 208) from Cameroon. Geometric mean Lp(a) levels were 274 and 289 mg/l in Bantu males and females, respectively, and 220 and 299 mg/l in Pygmy males and females, the gender difference being significant in Pygmies (p = 0.024). In Pygmies 41% and 52% of the males and females, respec...

An important problem of comparative Niger-Congo morphology is understanding the processes that relate word structures in languages of the isolating “Kwa” type to those of the agglutinating “Bantu” type. A salient sub-problem of this larger morphological puzzle is charting the connection between the noun class systems of the Kwa-type languages which, at one extreme, can lack such classes entirel...

Reconstructing the rise and fall of social complexity in human societies through time is fundamental for understanding some of the most important transformations in human history. Phylogenetic methods based on language diversity provide a means to reconstruct pre-historic events and model the transition rates of cultural change through time. We model and compare the evolution of social complexi...

OBJECTIVES To describe clinical events of sickle cell disease and the correlation with β-globin haplotypes and α-thalassemia in under 6-year-old children. METHODS A retrospective study was conducted of under 6-year-old children from the neonatal screening program in Rio de Janeiro. Forty-eight male and 48 female children were enrolled in this study, 79 with sickle cell anemia and 17 with hemo...

Full blood count and erythrocyte sedimentation rate, antistreptolysin titre, albumin/ globulin ratio, blood sugar estimation, gonococcal complement-fixation test, Wassermann and Treponema pallidum immobilization tests, Waaler-Rose latex-fixation test, Toxoplasma complement-fixation test, Tine test, histoplasmosis complement-fixation test. Urine and stool examination for parasites and bacteria. ...