MORPHOLOGY OF ERYTHROCYTES IN ERYTHROBLASTOSIS FOETALIS

Abstract

Acute hemolytic anemias due to autoantibody reactions have been observed in human beings¹ and induced experimentally in animals.² Hematologic examination of the experimental animals has revealed a fairly consistent pattern of morphologic change. During the initial phase of hemolysis, the mean cell diameter decreases and the mean cell volume increases, the cells assuming a spheroid shape. After several days the mean diameter rises above normal with the simultaneous appearance of macrocytes, nucleated red cells and increased numbers of reticulocytes. At this time the Price-Jones curve is frequently bimodal, and Dameshek has stressed this point as being of diagnostic import in such anemias. The recent work of Levine and his associates³ has shown that about 90 per cent of infants with erythroblastosis foetalis have an antigen, designated as Rh, in their blood cells which is inherited from the father, probably as a mendelian dominant character, and which the