Phenylketonuria Research Paper

Phenylketonuria, also known as PKU, was discovered in the 1920s by a Norwegian doctor named Asbjorn Folling. As the story goes there was a young couple by the name of Harry and Borgny Egeland. Harry was a dentist and Borgny had quit working to be a devote wife and mother. Shortly after their marriage Borgny became pregnant with their first child, a beautiful little girl named Liv.
As Liv grew and 3 years had passed her parents became concerned with the fact that she hadn’t began talking yet. They talked to their doctor, he told them there was nothing to be worried about and that little Liv will be talking in no time. About that time Borgny became pregnant with their second child, this time a beautiful little boy named Dag. Liv still wasn’t talking, and on top of that Dag was beginning to become weak and didn’t pay any mind to his surroundings. At sixteen months his older sister could walk, but little Dag couldn’t even sit up. Aware of the abnormal odor in their children’s urine the concerned parents began their search to find a doctor who could help them figure out what was wrong with their children. After many failed doctor visits and special treatments, Harry had thought back to his time in dental school where he
Folling offered to take urine samples and test them at the University Hospital in his laboratory. He did routine test on the urine, which all came back normal and then decided to test for ketones in the urine. When testing Liv’s urine, instead of turning the normal red/brown color when the aqueous ferric chloride solution was added, her urine turned a dark green that vanished within a few minutes. Confused but intrigued by the reaction he had received from the urine, the doctor asked the mother to bring in a urine sample from Dag, which produced the same results as his sister’s urine sample. Folling looked through every chemistry book he could but didn’t find anything describing the reaction he had gotten from the two children’s