(bleeder's disease) is where certain elements in the blood, which
normally would stop a person from bleeding to death, are inadequate
or missing.

This means that his blood will not clot or thicken and

harden at the site of a wound.
from a simple cut.

A person with this disease may die

Diabetes is another disease with genetic origins.

How mutation works was explained by Dr. James F. Crow, Professor of
Genetics and Biology at the University of Wisconsin, before the U. §.
Congressional hearings on fallout:
"Let me answer Senator Bricker's question.

"The implication of your question is that if I say the

great

majority of mutants that occur are harmful, why is it that the
great majority of genes that now exist in the population are
beneficial?

"The reason for this is natural selection.

The mutant genes

that have occurred in the past have been weeded out by the
process of natural selection so that the genes which now are
part of the normal population are those which have been retained
by this process of natural selection.
Therefore, even though
the great majority of mutants at the time they occur are such
as to cause harmful effects to the descendants, the ones which
cause the most harmful effects are eliminated by natural selection.
The genes left in the population are the beneficial

ones...

"A mutant that causes a great deal of harm is eliminated in a

few generations.
But one that causes only a small amount of
harm will persist much longer, and thus affect a correspondingly
larger number of persons.
On the average the larger number
affected by a mild mutation roughly compensates for the lesser
effect on the individual

"The total harm to the population, as measured by effects on

future generations, is strictly proportional to the total
amount of radiation received by the reproductive cells of the

population."

(94, p. 1012-3)

7

This illustrates the basic difference between irradiation of normal

somatic cells (like blood cells) and of the reproductive cells.

Both can

be dangerous; however, damage to somatic cells can be repaired -- and at

Select target paragraph3