CHLOROSIS. 261 



tive changes in the number of the corpuscles. These 

 conditions, of which Chlorosis is the principal represen- 

 tative, offer a certain resemblance to those which are 

 accompanied by an increase in the number of the colour- 

 less blood-corpuscles, to leukaemia in a narrower sense 

 of the word and the merely leucocytotic states. Chlo- 

 rosis is distinguished from leukaemia by the circumstance 

 that the entire number of the corpuscles is smaller. 

 Whilst in leukaemia colourless corpuscles in some sort 

 take the place of the red ones and a real diminution in 

 the number of the cellular elements in the blood is not 

 produced, in chlorosis the elements of both kinds become 

 less numerous, without the occurrence of any definite 

 disturbance in the numerical relation existing between 

 the coloured and colourless corpuscles. This points to a 

 generally diminished formation, and, if we may conclude 

 (as I certainly think one can at the present moment 

 scarcely help doing), that the red corpuscles also are 

 brought to the blood from the spleen and lymphatic 

 glands, all this would indicate that in chlorosis a dimin- 

 ished formation takes place in the blood-glands. Leukae- 

 mia is of course much more easily explained, inasmuch 

 as in it we find representatives of the whole mass of cel- 

 lular elements and can imagine that a part of them, 

 instead of being transformed into red corpuscles, are 

 pursuing their development as colourless ones. In the 

 history of chlorosis, on the contrary, much obscurity still 

 prevails, since we cannot positively demonstrate the ex- 

 istence of a primary affection of the blood-glands. Ana- 

 tomical observations indicate that the foundations of the 

 chlorotic ailment are very early laid ; for the aorta and 

 the larger arteries are usually, and the heart and sexual 

 organs frequently, found imperfectly developed, facts 

 which lead us to infer that the disposition is either con- 

 genital or formed in early youth. 



