THE REPUTED RESERVOIR FUNCTION OF THE SPLEEN OF THE DOMESTIC FOWL

Abstract

The spleen of the chicken, according to Harmon et al., serves as a reservoir of erythrocytes, which in times of emergency expells the red cells into the general circulation. Hb detns. were made on the blood of fowls before and after asphyxia with the spleen intact and after splenectomy. Existence of the reservoir function was considered proven if the blood sample following asphyxia (2d sample) showed an increase in Hb over the 1st one (before asphyxia) when the spleen was intact, and if no increase in the 2d sample over the 1st was observed after removal of spleen. These workers used the Dare hemo-globinometer in making the detns., since shown by later workers to be unsuitable for detns. on chicken blood. The method used in making the detns. in this study was the Newcomer acid hematin method as modified by Schultze and Elvehjem. The results of this study,* based upon detns. involving a larger number of birds and upon 3 and 4 samples per bird taken over a period of time do not confirm those of the above workers. The means for the blood samples before and after asphyxia when the spleen was intact were 8.90 and 9.12 gs. of Hb/100 cc. of blood. The means for the samples after splenectomy were 9.03 and 8.95 gs. respectively. The differences in these means are not significant.