A study of the toxin of pernicious anemia.

Abstract

In a paper on the toxin of menstruation, Macht and Lubin have shown that by means of phyto-pharmacological preparations, the presence of a poison or toxin in the blood menstruating individuals can be detected. While examining specimens of blood from normal and menstruating women the author happened to test a specimen of blood from a case of pernicious anemia and found it to be highly toxic for plants. The toxicity was even greater than the most toxic specimens of menstrual blood. Inasmuch as the above specimen came from a man it was thought worth while to study other cases of pernicious anemia by the phyto-pharmacological method. A larger series of cases of normal blood and blood from various anemias, as diagnosed clinically and morphologically, were examined and it was found that the blood serum from cases of pernicious anemia behaved differently from that of all the other cases examined. The tests were made on living seedlings of Lupinus albus, described by the author elsewhere. It was found that whereas the index of growth given by a one per cent solution of normal human blood was 75 per cent, the average growth coefficient given by 48 cases of pernicious anemia was 44 per cent; some of the specimens giving as low a figure as 28 per cent and none of them giving a higher figure than 51 per cent. Specimens of severe secondary anemias and specimens obtained from patients suffering with carcinoma, pellagra, lymphatic and myologenous leukemias, and Hodgkin's disease were all found to be but little toxic for the plants so that the author had no difficulty in diagnosing cases of pernicious anemia by examining unknown samples of blood by the phyto-pharmacological method.