SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ERYTHROCYTE-PIGMENT RELATIONSHIPS IN NEONATAL BLOOD AND MARROW

¹ Physiology Laboratory University College, Dublin

Direct independent measurement of the percentage proportion of ftal and adult erythrocytes and hæmoglobin as well as of the red cell diameters have been made on five samples of cord blood, and a ftal marrow smear has been examined after differential elution. When cell capacity is taken into account the difference between the percentage ftal erythrocytes and percentage ftal hæmoglobin in cord blood in many cases largely disappears. In two out of five cases, in fact, the ftal cell capacity and the ftal pigment percentage coincided, but in one case the disparity remained when the capacity correction was made. It may be said, therefore, that in some though not in all cases hæmoglobin mixtures are not found in the one cell and each pigment has its own package. It is not permissible to assign morphologically discrete sites of production to ftal and adult hæmoglobins, one is not formed exclusively in the liver, nor is the other the sole medullary product.

Note:

To Professor E. F. McCarthy I am indebted for encouragement and advice as well as for reading the manuscript and permission to publish. I should like to thank also my clinical colleagues, Drs. D. and G. McCarthy and F. Geoghegan, who made the material for this work available to me, and Dr. J. Dyson who, as well as forwarding reprints, referred me to Messrs. Cooke, Troughton and Simms, who kindly loaned the image-splitting eyepiece. To achieve objectivity the differential cell counts were made independently by Mr. P. O'Shea, Chief Technician, for whose skilled co-operation I am also grateful.