THE NEUTROPENIC STATE

Abstract

A growing importance is being attached to the signs and symptoms which have only recently begun to be recognized as associated with a decrease or absence of neutrophilic leukocytes in the peripheral blood. Since the more or less routine counting of the blood cells became a recognized aid in clinical diagnosis, physicians have noted a tendency to leukopenia as a part of certain well known clinical syndromes. Typhoid, influenza, osteomyelitis, tuberculosis, overwhelming infections with the pneumococcus and streptococcus, certain virus diseases, pernicious anemia, aleukemic leukemia, and lymphoblastomas of various types, especially Hodgkin's disease, are, or may all be, characterized by a total white cell count within or below the limits of normal. Various toxic agents—benzene, the arsenicals, mesothorium, trinitrotoluene, x-rays, or the gamma rays of radium—have been found to be the cause not infrequently of profound leukopenia, often with an associated anemia, in individuals exposed to these hazards. Leukopenia, neutropenia