INFARCTION 329 



Panski''^ found that after ligation of the splenic vein of dogs the red 

 corpuscles begin to give up their hemoglobin in about three hours. 

 After twelve hours fibrin formation begins in the tissues, the corpus- 

 cles continue to give up hemoglobin and become cloudy in appearance. 

 Later, iron-containing pigment is formed in the cells beneath the cap- 

 sule, but in the deeper tissue even the iron normally present in the 

 spleen tissue seems to disappear ;^^ this possibly depends upon the 

 fact that pigment reacting for iron, hemosiderin, is formed only in 

 living cells under the influence of oxygen, or it may be that acids 

 formed during autolysis dissolve it. During autolysis in vitro, how- 

 ever, Corper^* found no evidence of removal of iron from insoluble 

 or coagulable compounds. The hemolysis is probably produced either 

 by the action of autolytic products, which are notoriously hemolytic, 

 or perhaps also by direct attack of tissue and blood proteases upon 

 the corpuscles. 



Other retrogressive changes that may occur in infarcts, such as sep- 

 tic softening and calcification, are not greatly different from the same 

 processes occurring in other conditions, and will be considered with 

 the discussion of these processes. 



'2 "Untersuchungen iiber den Pigmentgehalt der Stauungsmilz," Dorpat, 1890. 

 " See also M. B. Schmidt, Cent. f. Path., 1908 (19), 416. 

 ="• Jour. Exper. Med., 1912 (15), 429. 



