480 PATHOLOGICAL PIGMENTATION 



carotin. '^^ Palmer found that carotin is the pigment of milk fat, 

 body fat and corpus luteum of the cow, while xanthophyll with some 

 carotin colors the egg yo\k, body fat and blood serum of the fowl. 

 Chickens deprived of these pigments from the time of hatching have 

 no pigment in their fats or egg yolks although the fowls are healthy 

 and their colorless eggs are fertile. ^^ This work makes doubtful the 

 existence of other fat-soluble intracellular pigments in man, such as 

 lipofuscin, and Dolley states that even the typical lipofuscin of brown 

 atrophy of the heart is sometimes insoluble in all reagents that dissolve 

 fats. 



Xanthosis diabetica^^ also seems to depend on an excess of lipochromes in the 

 blood, probably partly endogenous from mobilization of tissue fats and chiefly 

 exogenous from the abundance of green vegetables in the diet. Accompanying 

 hypercholesterolemia is usually present. 



CMoroma." — The pigment that causes the peculiar green color characteristic 

 of these malignant growths, was considered by Chiari, Huber and others as a 

 fatty substance related to or identical with the lipochromes. It commonly fades 

 on exposure to air, and also when in the usual preservative fluids, to which it 

 does not impart its color. The color may be brought back after formaldehyde 

 preservation by H2O2 or by weak alkalies (Burgess)." Ottenberg" has suggested 

 that the green color may be due to eosinophiles which abound in chloromas, since 

 in fresh preparations eosinophile granules have a faint greenish tinge. It contains 

 no iron, is soluble in absolute alcohol and in ether, and is usually, but not always 

 (v. Recklinghausen), stained black with osmic acid.*^ Treadgold states that as 

 the green color is not present from the beginning it would seem that cellular de- 

 generation must play a part. Possibly a degeneration of the granules of the 

 myelocytes and myeloblasts, aided by the products of hemoglobin disintegration, 

 is responsible.*^^ 



Chromophile cells may be considered in this connection. Kohn^' has described 

 certaincellswithadecidedaffinity for chromic ocid and its salts, found abundantly 

 in the sympathetic nervous system, in the carotid gland, and in the medulla of the 

 adrenal. They are also present in tumors derived from these organs. Extracts 

 from such organs have a marked effect in raising blood pressure, and, according 

 to Wiesel,'^* they are greatly involved in Addison's disease. The nature of the 

 chromophile substance is unknown, but it can be fixed only by chromic acid 

 or chromates; cells hardened by other means show merelj' spaces in the places 

 occupied by this substance. It is generally believed to be the same as the epi- 

 nephrine, but it does not always seem to parallel in amount the quantity of epine- 

 phrine as determined chemically. Ogata''" states that the chrome reaction depends 

 on the reduction of chromic acid to chromium dioxide by epinephrine. 



«» Dolley and Guthrie, Jour. Med. Res., 1919 (40), 295. Marinesco, however, 

 says that the pigment of nerve cells resembles that produced during autolysis in 

 ganglia (C. R. Soc. Biol., 1913 (72), 838). 



6^ Jour. Biol. Chem., 1919 (39), 299. 



62 Burger and Reinhart, Ziet. exp. Med., 1918 (7), 119. 



"Literature by Dock, Amer. Jour. Med. Sci., 1893 (106), 152; and Dock and 

 Warthin, Med. News, 1904 (85), 971; Burgess, Jour. Med. Res., 1912 (27), 133. 



«* Amer. Jour. Med. Sci., 1909 (138), 505. 



*' The pigment of xanthelasma multiplex seems to be a fatty substance (Pocns- 

 gen). Virchow's Arch., 1883 (91), 354. 



«6 Quart. .Jour. Med., 1908 (1), 239; Weber, Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., Clin. Med. 

 Sec, 191G (9), 7. 



" Prag. med. Woch., 1902 (27), 325. 



«« Zeit. f. Heilk., Path. Alit., 1903 (24), 257. 



«» Jour. Exp. Med., 1917 (25), 807. 



