William P. Murphy

A Comparison of the Effect of Vitamin B12 with That of Liver Extract in the Treatment of Pernicious Anemia during Relapse and for Maintenance

SINCE the isolation of vitamin B12 from liver and its extracts by Rickes and his associates1 and by Smith,2 sufficient evidence of its effectiveness for the control of pernicious anemia has been pr...

PROFILE PRINTING IN THE PHOTOMICROGRAPHY OF BLOOD CELLS

Photomicrography has been used to good advantage for a number of years to record for future reference or for purposes of demonstration the microscopic appearance of blood cells or tissue sections. That it might be used to demonstrate the actual shape of the erythrocyte and the location of granules in the leukocyte seemed possible, particularly after the introduction of the profile or three dimensional method of printing. The problem which offered the most important possibility was that of demonstrating the spherocytes in the blood of a person suspected of having familial hemolytic anemia. However, in order to do this, it seemed desirable to visualize for comparison the erythrocytes of the blood of normal persons and those with other varieties of anemia. In figure 1 is shown the photomicrograph of erythrocytes from a normal person as printed in the usual manner for comparison with the same erythrocytes recorded by the profile

THE EFFECT OF A VITAMIN B COMPLEX ON THE RESIDUAL NEURAL DISTURBANCES OF TREATED PERNICIOUS ANEMIA

Excerpt Upon completion of the study of the effect of thiamin on the residual neural disturbances of treated pernicious anemia the experiment was repeated under the same conditions using a vitamin ...

POTENCY OF ANTIANEMIC PREPARATIONS

To the Editor:— The editorial on the potency of antianemic preparations inThe Journal, April 11, prompts me to comment on the obvious inadequacy of the method for determining the quantitative potency of liver substitutes prescribed by the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry. Determination of the potency of such substances, as specified by the Council, is to be made on the basis of the magnitude of the reticulocyte response induced by the administration of the liver substitute. Although such a response has been used as an indication of qualitative potency of liver and substitutes for it since the introduction of liver therapy, it has been almost uniformly recognized that the magnitude of this response is not necessarily a measure of the power of a substance to produce erythrocytes, which is the fundamental problem concerned in the treatment of pernicious anemia. Not only will certain substances not effective in stimulating erythrocytes