Hugh Chaplin, M.D., professor emeritus of medicine and of pathology
(Xlibris Corp., 2003)
From age 6, Lenabell McClelland Bell, daughter of African-American sharecroppers, experienced weeks of excruciating pain in her arms, legs, back and chest. These episodes recurred every few months, often requiring hospitalization and making steady employment impossible.
At age 20, her pain crises were diagnosed as sickle cell disease, from which she would almost surely die before age 40. She became Hugh Chaplin’s patient at age 38 — impoverished, addicted to opiates needed for pain and facing impending death.
Chaplin, M.D., a specialist in hematology and now professor emeritus of medicine and of pathology, invited her to become an experimental subject in an effort to discover ways to make sickle-cell crises less frequent and less severe. For 45 years, she played a pioneering role in studies published in major scientific journals.
Lenabell tells of experimental failures as well as near-miraculous successes. She survived to age 83.
Chaplin wrote the book to honor Bell and to educate people about this devastating hereditary disease that is common among African-Americans.
It affects one in every 400 African-American infants. More than 2.5 million African-Americans have the sickle cell trait, and children of parents who both have the trait have a one-in-four chance of having the disease.
This affectionate memoir describes Bell’s life from childhood to old age and the enduring friendship that flourished between her and her physician. She invited Chaplin to visit her world — to see where she grew up and to meet her friends and relatives. She also shared her views on music, art, race, religion and death.
“Lenabell and I both believed we could do a great service in educating people, especially African-Americans, about the disease,” Chaplin said. “She was extremely disciplined and courageous. She also was a person of uncommon virtue.”
— Diane Duke WilliamsChaplin