Anthropology and genetic disease: Past, present and future.

Medicine has given much to the development of anthropology, right from its earliest days, long before genetic disease was ever documented. Differences in frequency of normal genetic variants were found to occur among the world's peoples, but also the frequencies of particular genetic diseases differed from one major population to another. A disease regarded as an, entity clinically and genetically is in fact often found to be the outcome of different mutations that have occurred at the DNA level. The variation revealed by RFLPs and VNTRs in the DNA in regions adjacent to disease genes, or within the genes themselves, shows the extent of molecular complexity. In the future, anthropology will be called on. more and more to help explain the patterns of differences between individuals and populations. New data will refine the conclusions regarding affinities, distances, and evolution of human populations drawn from earlier data. It is now necessary to ask what is the significance of the variation that is described, its biological significance, its evolutionary significance.