Anaemia.

  • Ehrlich, Paul, 1854-1915.
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Anaemia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    normal. From this he argued that in chlorosis and other forms of antemia there is no diminution, but rather a relative increase of hemoglobin, and that the other albuminous components of the blood are diminished. Even if these iron determinations could be shown to be free from error (and it must be pointed out that they have been directly contravened by other authors), what has been said above will suffice to prove that the far-reaching deductions which Biernacki has drawn from his results are untenable. It must further be pointed out that delicate analyses like those on which Biernacki based his conclusions could only be accepted if confirmed by control experiments. The number of erythrocytes ^ and the haemoglobin value stand in close relationship to one another, but there is no complete parallelism between them. In certain pathological conditions the hsemoglobin content is higher than the number of red blood corpuscles would suggest, while in others it is lower. In some cases the diminution of the number of erythrocytes corresponds exactly to the diminution of the hsemoglobin value. For example, in a man a red cell count of four millions would correspond to a haemoglobin value of 80. But in chlorosis, inter alia, the diminution of the hemoglobin is greater proportionately than the diminution of the red cells, so that a reduction to 80 per cent, of red cells might exist simultaneously with a reduction to 60 per cent, of haemoglobin. If the haemoglobin percentage be divided by the red cell per- centage, the quotient may be regarded as the expression of this relation. This quotient is called the blood corpuscle value or the colour index. In the instance cited above it would be — = 0*75. The colour index may be even greater than 1, when the diminution of the haemoglobin is smaller than that of the erythrocytes. This occurrence was first observed in pro- gressive pernicious anaemia. According to Meyer and Hieneke, ^ N.B.—The term erythrocyte is not usually employed by English wi'iters, but it is so handy that use will be made of it in this work. 2