Deposits of iron in the liver and kidneys : with remarks on the demonstration of iron in tissues / Sheridan Delépine.

  • Auguste Sheridan Delépine
Date:
[1891]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Deposits of iron in the liver and kidneys : with remarks on the demonstration of iron in tissues / Sheridan Delépine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    interest, not only on account of its demonstrating the effects of the methods I have just described, but also because it shews that there may be very distinct differences in the state of combination of the so-called free iron found in organs in the case I have alluded to (a doubtful case of Pernicious Anaemia). I question whether this difference could have been proved by the use of ordinary chemical reagents, since the weakest among them would have certainly brought about alterations of composition proportionally so considerable as to obscure entirely such minor differences as must have existed in this case. Immediately after removal of the organ from the body the kidney gave unmistakeable proof of its containing a large amount of so-called free iron. The liver gave no, or a very doubtful iron reaction. By leaving the organs for a few days in alcohol and glycerine, the iron reaction became a little brighter in colour in the parts of the kidney which were pigmented from the first but, what is more interesting, iron was revealed, and found to be abundant, in the portal zone of the liver which originally seemed to contain hardly any pigment, and gave practically no iron reaction\ As It is shewn by the behaviour of the various pigments of the body that the more intimately iron is bound up in organic combina- tions the more difficult it is to demonstrate the presence of that metal by processes which do not imply complete breaking up of these compounds, it seems only logical to assume that in this case the iron was a little freer in the kidney than in the liver. As the kidney did not seem to contain any marked amount of the pale or colourless iron compound which after a time was found to be present m the liver and vice versa, it seems evident that the iron contained iu the liver was not in the same state as that which was being excreted Irom the body by the kidney. On the other hand the pale compound tound in the liver and capable of yielding the iron reaction after the action of such a weak agent as a mixture of alcohol and glycerine was evidently an intermediate product between those colourless albuminates which do not yield the iron reaction before their organic connections have been artificially broken up and those looser compounds which are found accumulated in the hver a certain number of hours after a meal or in certain diseases (such as pernicious anW). ^ ' In the kidney the body containing iron was in the form of brownish vpll., quite diBtmct even before the application of the Prussian Blue test '''^''^