Leukosin : a new substance found in the blood of leukamia : also a description of another crystalline body found in the vomitus / by James C. White.

  • James Clarke White
Date:
[1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leukosin : a new substance found in the blood of leukamia : also a description of another crystalline body found in the vomitus / by James C. White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    SURGEON GENERAL'S OFFICE JUL U1909 6 IJ^ LEUKOSIN. A NEW SUBSTANCE POUND IN THE BLOOD OF LEUKAMIA. ALSO A DESCRIPTION OF ANOTHER CRYSTALLINE BODY FOUND IN THE VOMITUS. , BY JAMES C. WHITE, M.D. {Read before the Boston Society for Medical Observation, and communicated foi tlie Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.] During the present winter two cases of leukamia, or Icucocythe- mia, have been observed in this city. One of these has been fully reported to a meeting of the Medical Improvement Society by Dr. H. J. Bigelow. The second occurred at the Massachusetts General Hospital, under the care of Dr. H. I. Bowditch, and will be noticed by him at a future meeting of the same Society. Dr. El- lis made the post-mortem examination in this latter case, and gave me the blood to analyze. Leaving to him, therefore, the complete description of its pathological condition, which corresponds ex- actly to that usually met with in this disease, I^ shall confine my remarks merely to the chemical changes noticed in this and similar instances. As long ago as 1845, Rudolph Virchow examined a body and found the liver, spleen and lymphatic glands enlarged, and at the same time the blood changed in a manner, being composed, in fact, to a large extent, of the colorless corpuscles. With that admirable sagacity peculiar to the man, he saw at once that this was something very dif- ferent from those cases described as pyamia by previous observers, and, to distinguish it, called the disease leukamia. During the next four years he discovered three other cases, which he publish- ed from time to time,,and in wjiich he insisted upon this unnoticed^ connection between the enlargement of the blood-glands <iSd»tKe- characteristic excess of white corpuscles in the blood, urging the German physicians to increased attention to this disease. It was likewise in 1845 that Bennett observed and described a case of hypertrophy of the spleen and liver, in which death took place from suppuration of the blood. Of the real nature of this case, however, ho was so profoundly unsuspicious that he even labored