Studies on the Destruction of Red Blood Cells

Abstract

In 1927, in a classic paper, Hahn and Gillespie¹⁹clearly defined the basis of the anomalous physical behavior of the sickle cell as an abnormality of its hemoglobin when in the deoxygenated state and pointed to the affected cells as the primary cause of the characteristic hemolytic anemia. From microscopic observations of drops of blood suspended in a gas chamber and from the results of the removal of a large spleen from a child with sicklemia, they were led to make the following statement: Sickle cell formation is a reversible phenomenon depending on the free or combined state of the hemoglobin of the susceptible corpuscles. When the hemoglobin is in the combined state, the discoid form is stable; when in the uncombined state, the distorted form is stable. The behavior of the susceptible corpuscles toward oxygen asphyxia thus constitutes a special application of a hypothesis correlating contour with