Influence of Serum From Pernicious Anemic Persons Treated by Liver on Growth of Seedlings.

Abstract

The nature of the therapeutical effect produced by liver in cases of pernicious anemia is still under discussion, and we desired to establish whether the toxicity of blood of such patients undergoes any changes under treatment by liver, in order to determine the character of its influence on the blood.

We used the toxic blood of patients suffering from pernicious anemia, which impeded abruptly the growth of seedlings of Lupinus albus in the Shive nutritive solution, Macht. 1 We used the methods suggested by Macht, except that for the germination of Lupinus albus seedlings we used boiled sawdust instead of sphagnum moss.

We determined the phytotoxic index in 7 cases of pernicious anemia treated with liver during 7 to 12 months with excellent effect. Whereas before the treatment the patients all showed severe symptoms of typical pernicious anemia, after the above periods they were all entirely efficient, clinically healthy, and the picture of blood did not show any deviations from the norm. They did not stop taking liver, and yet we discovered in all cases very pronounced phototoxicity of serum, such as Macht found in cases of untreated pernicious anemia studied by him, afterwards confirmed in our further experiments.

The phytotoxical index varied in 6 cases from 46 to 50%, and in one case was as high as 54%. The latter case showed a propensity to spontaneous remission even before the beginning of liver treatment. In 2 untreated cases the index was 46 and 47%, and in one case after a week's treatment it was 46%. Finally, in one case, after 7 weeks'treatment by liver the index went up from 46 to 51%. Besides this last mentioned case, we have at present none at our disposal in which the variations of index could be determined during the treatment, and we therefore refrain from coming to a conclusion regarding the possible diminution of phytotoxicity in the first period of treatment.