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DISCUSSION 



McFarlane: It seems quite clear from these results and from earlier 

 American results that the liver is the main organ dealing with injected 

 radio-iron, and it may be that the high concentration of the isotope 

 which you find in the bone-marrow in febrile conditions is due to the 

 fact that the liver has suffered serious damage. Did you find any 

 histological changes in the liver in these febrile animals? 



Vannotti: In acute infection the liver is certainly slightly injured. 

 The lesion, however, is not sufficiently important to cause an inhibition 

 of the liver's iron metabolism. This is proved by the fairly high level 

 of the isotope in the liver cells. In fact, in all the experiments (anaemia, 

 hypoxsemia, hyperthyroidism), the highest level of iron in the liver was 

 found in acute infection. We must therefore conclude that a particular 

 tropism of the haematopoietic organs towards iron is responsible for 

 the considerable increase of iron in the bone-marrow. 



Aterman: Have you Siuy suggestion about the part the adrenal plays 

 in the metabolism of iron in these conditions? I think Wintrobe's 

 group has recently published a paper on hypoferraemia, where they 

 found that corticosteroids influence the metabolism of iron in various 

 conditions. 



Vannotti: In earlier experiments we have seen that iron levels in 

 liver and blood are related to the action of the adrenal system, for 

 example, the variation in blood iron in the morning and evening, or 

 after severe muscular effort. Such differences are certainly related to 

 adrenal activity. It was not possible to test for fixation of iron in the 

 adrenal system on account of the small quantities involved. 



Falk: I wondered whether phosphate, and calcium as well, might not 

 be implicated in this story. There seems to be fair evidence that iron 

 uptake by the whole animal is inhibited by free phosphate, so that low- 

 phosphate diets increase the amount of iron assimilated; the calcium- 

 phosphate balance may thus be important. I wondered whether that 

 balance might be changed in the various tissues under your various 

 conditions, determining the amount of free phosphate in each of those 

 tissues; the amount of free phosphate, in turn, determining the amount 

 of iron assimilated. 



Vannotti: I did not examine the phosphate and calcium metabolism, 

 but I must repeat that this fixation is only in the bone marrow and not 

 in the bone structure, which is practically free from labelled iron. Also 

 these examinations are made one and a half hours after the injection of 



