BLOOD REGENERATION IN SEVERE ANEMIA

Abstract

In severe secondary anemia the healthy dog can conserve in remarkable fashion blood hemoglobin introduced in-traperitoneally or intravenously. As much as 80-90% of the hemoglobin introduced will appear in new formed red cells, which are removed and quantitatively measured. When blood cells are fed, only a portion of the material is utilized[long dash]5-20 %. When a pancreatic digest of dog red cells is given intravenously in severe experimental anemia there may be 40% utilization as calculated from the original digest. Muscle hemoglobin when given intravenously is not well tolerated and its renal threshold is quite low. The amounts given of necessity are very much less than in experiments with blood hemoglobin, and it is difficult to be sure of its utilization. It is probable that some of the muscle hemoglobin given in severe anemia is utilized to build new red cell hemoglobin. Numerous experiments with fresh dog bile feeding anemia give no convincing evidence for a "pigment circulation" and bile pigment utilization to form new red cell hemoglobin.