128 



Scientific Proceedings (29). 



80 (336) 



A study of metabolic effects of experimental poly- 

 cythemia in dogs. 



By WILLIAM WEINBERGER (by invitation). 



\From the Laboratory of Biological Chemistry of Columbia Univer- 

 sity, at the College of Physicians and Sttrgeons.'j 1 

 Although the clinical and morphological signs of plethora vera 

 are known to a large extent, the metabolic effects produced by 

 increasing the amount of blood in the body have been but spar- 

 ingly investigated. The present research deals with the latter 

 question. The augmentation of the supply of blood was effected 

 by intravenous transfusion of defibrinated blood taken from the 

 same species. In one experiment direct transfusion was performed 

 after connecting a femoral artery of one dog with a small branch 

 of a saphenous vein in another. After each transfusion, as will be 

 shown later, there developed a condition of the blood that closely 

 resembled polycythemia, as observed in man. These experiments 

 also bear upon certain phases of the general question of parenteral 

 nutrition. 



Seven experiments were conducted on as many apparently 

 healthy dogs that were kept under observation for some time be- 

 fore the experiments were started. The majority of the experiments 

 lasted from 5 to 6 weeks. Some dogs were under observation 

 for even a longer time. Each experiment was divided into pre- 

 liminary periods of normal nutritional conditions, and subsequent 

 periods during which the metabolic influences of blood transfusion 

 were studied. Two animals were put through a period of fasting 

 that lasted 16 days in one case and 25 days in the other, during 

 each of which two blood transfusions were performed to ascertain 

 their possible nutritive value and metabolic effects. In some cases 



1 This series of experiments is the sixth of a group of reseaches, inaugurated in 

 1902 by Dr. Gies and now in progress in this laboratory, on the biochemical effects of 

 change of volume of the circulating blood. See Gies : American Medicine, 1904, viii, 

 p. 155 ; Posner and Gies : Proceedings of the American Physiological Society : Ameri- 

 can Journal of Physiology, 1904, x, p. xxxi ; Hawk and Gies: ibid., 1904, xi, p. 17 1 ; 

 Meyer and Gies : Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, 

 1904, i, p. 44 ; Weingarten and Crohn : American Journal of Physiology, 1908, xxii, 

 p. 207. 



