428 Messrs. S. G. Shattock and L. S. Dudgeon. [Mar. 18, 



Conceiving of the blood, then, as a complex tissue, and subject like any 

 other to parasitic and bacterial infection, or partaking in the morbid changes 

 of many other specific diseases, it might be imagined that it would likewise 

 be subject to degenerations, and more particularly to the chief and most 

 widespread of all of these, viz., fatty. 



The blood-degeneration which has been as yet most studied (other than 

 the so-called polychromatophilic of the red cells) is that usually regarded 

 as glycogenic, and consists in the abnormal, i.e., excessive, appearance of 

 glycogen, chiefly in the finely granular polymorphonuclear leucocytes, although 

 the granules occur also in the eosinophile or coarsely granular polymorpho- 

 nuclear cells, and to a lesser degree in the lymphocytes. 



To this form of degeneration (which is known also as iodinophilic or 

 iodophilic, since the grains and granules take a brown colour after treatment 

 with iodine solution) we will refer again in connection with certain 

 ambiguous appearances met with by ourselves in blood-films treated with 

 Scharlach solution. 



If we except pathological effusions, such as those of pleurisy and peritonitis 

 and purulent exudations, the process of fatty degeneration has hitherto 

 been looked for and studied only in the solid tissues. Yet it will be 

 apparent on theoretical grounds that in cases where fatty degeneration of 

 the last-named tissues is due to a deficient oxygen-carrying power of the 

 blood, or to a toxic condition of it, the state of the blood might react upon 

 itself so as to induce similar changes in its own cells. 



The chief causes of fatty degeneration in general, excluding those of a 

 local character which produce only a local change and have no interest m 

 connection with the present subject, are profound anaemias and certain forms 

 of toxaemia, whether bacterial or of inorganic causation, as especially 

 illustrated in phosphorus poisoning. 



In the first the fatty degeneration of the various organs results from the 

 reduction in the oxygen-carrying power of the blood. In the second, it 

 results directly from the injurious action of the toxin upon the cells of the 

 tissue. 



Our inquiry, therefore, is : Does the blood itself suffer similarly in these 

 two groups of morbid conditions ? 



(1) Do the leucocytes (leaving the red cells out of consideration) suffer 



from a defective oxygen-carrying power of the blood itself ? 



(2) Do the leucocytes suffer from the direct action of toxins circulating 



in the blood in profound toxaemia ? 

 In the blood, as in other tissues, the distinction must be drawn between 

 fatty infiltration and fatty degeneration. 



