Hematological changes in the newt during the process of splenic decongestion in reply to hypoxia

Abstract

Abstract Specimens of the newt, Triturus cristatus carnifex (Laurenti), anesthetized with chlorobutanol and exposed to humid air at 6° C for 300 min, accumulate about 50 of their red blood cells (RBC) in the spleen. When the newts are transferred to still water at 18° C, the spleen releases the RBC back into circulation, emptying itself out completely. This process counteracts the hypoxia caused by both the increase in temperature and low coefficient of oxygen diffusion in water. The analysis of the RBC counts, hematocrit value and percentage volumes of the spleen, blood and plasma (the last measured colorimetrically after injecting 0.05 ml of Evans blue in the conus arteriosus) in groups of newts sampled at various periods during the spleen decongestion reveals the trend of the compensatory process. The emptying out of the spleen takes less than an hour, causing significant increases in the RBC concentration after 15 and 30 min of immersion; the counts then undergo an inflexion which becomes significant ...