Current Comment

EXPERIMENTAL ANEMIA  Recently Rhodes and Miller¹ reported a study of the effects of a combination of aminopyrine and nutritional deficiency on the blood of dogs. They found that dogs fed on normal diets could be given 0.5 Gm. of aminopyrine by stomach tube daily without demonstrable change in the blood picture. They further found that dogs on the Goldberg pellagra-producing (black tongue) diet also usually failed to develop any appreciable anemia. A combination, however, of this diet and 0.5 Gm. of aminopyrine daily led to a pronounced and at times fatal anemia in from eight to thirty-five days. Daily administration of 10 Gm. of yeast autolysate would prevent or cure this anemia. These observations led Rhodes² to study the action on the blood of dogs of other toxic products of endogenous origin. When indole was used for this purpose, Rhodes found that normally fed dogs could be given a capsule containing 1 Gm. of crystalline indole daily without appreciable effect on the blood picture. If dogs previously fed on the Goldberg diet for some five to twelve weeks were given 1 Gm. of indole daily, they invariably showed a precipitous fall in hemoglobin content and in the numbers of red blood cells. The red cells usually fell to