404 PATHOLOGICAL PIGMENTATION 



3.70 per cent, of sulphur, from which he considers that it is 

 related to the melanins or melanoid substances. The substance 

 is readily dissolved by alkalies, and contains no iron. Accord- 

 ing to Taranoukhine, 1 the pigment in the myocardium in 

 brown atrophy of the heart is also derived from proteids, and is 

 neither a lipochrome nor a hemoglobin derivative. Other 

 observers, however, consider this pigment a lipochrome (q. v.). 



Hemocliromatosis. 2 This name was given by von Reck- 

 linghausen to a condition in which the organs and tissues 

 throughout the body are abundantly infiltrated with two pig- 

 ments : one, iron-containing, identical with hemosiderin ; the 

 other seems to be the same as the hemofuscin described above. 

 The hemosiderin is found chiefly in the parenchyma cells of 

 the glandular organs, especially the liver and pancreas, which 

 organs usually show marked interstitial proliferation. The 

 hemofuscin is found in the smooth muscle-fibers of the gastro- 

 intestinal tract, blood-vessels, and genito-urinary tract. Under 

 the heading of local hemochromatosis, von Recklinghausen 

 grouped such conditions as brown atrophy of the heart, and 

 pigmentation of the intestinal wall, which probably are quite 

 distinct from the generalized hemochromatosis, since the local 

 form occurs as a physiological process in old age. In a con- 

 siderable proportion of the cases of generalized hemochroma- 

 tosis there occurs diabetes, called by Hauot," bronzed diabetes," 

 because of the coloration of the skin. 3 It has been suggested 

 that the pigmentation is due to decomposition of the blood-cor- 

 puscles in the diabetic blood, but recent writers seem agreed 

 that the pigmentation and sclerotic changes precede the diabetes, 

 which is secondary to the atrophic and sclerotic changes in the 

 pancreas. There can be little question that both the pigment 

 formation and the tissue changes depend upon some intoxica- 

 tion, the origin and nature of the toxic agent being entirely 

 unknown. In many cases it has seemed probable that alcohol 

 might have been the inciting cause. 



Opie's conclusions concerning this subject are as follows : (1) 

 There is a distinct morbid entity, hemochromatosis, character- 

 ized by wide-spread deposition of an iron-containing pigment in 

 certain cells, and an associated formation of iron-free pigments 

 in a variety of localities in which pigment is found in moderate 



1 Koussky Arch. Patol., 1900 (10) 441. 



2 Literature given by Opie, Jour. Exp. Med., 1899 (4), 279 ; and Beattie, 

 Jour. Pathol. and Back, 1903 (9), 117. 



3 Literature by Opie and Beattie (loc. ait.) ; also by Anschiitz, Deut. Arch, 

 klin. Med., 1899 (62), 411; Hess and Zurhelle, Zeit. klin. Med., 1905 (57), 

 362. 



