Leukosin : a new substance found in the blood of leukamia : also a description of another crystalline body found in the vomitus / by James C. White.

  • White, James C. (James Clarke), 1833-1916.
Date:
[1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Leukosin : a new substance found in the blood of leukamia : also a description of another crystalline body found in the vomitus / by James C. White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ed, elongated, rhombic octahedra, with sharp outlines in profile. In a few instances they are united by pairs, the long axes crossing each other at right angles. Many of them differ from the true type of crystallization, being extremely elongated, and exhibiting incurved faces and such ir- Fig. i. regularities of form, as to prove their organic nature.- (Fig. 1.) This supposition is entirely confirmed by the re- sult of incineration, to which on being submitted no resi- due was left. In sulphuric and hydrochloric acids they are quickly dissolved. In a solution of caustic potash they are readily soluble, but no ropiness is produced by its addition to the blood, as would be the case if pus were present. In acetic acid they are also soluble, though slowly. In concentrated ni- tric acid they are, strange to say, completely insoluble, even when heated, and as- sume a faint yellow hue. By its action their acute angles are sometimes bent upon themselves, ,as seen in Fig. 1, a. In cold and hot water they are alike insolu- ble, and they remain unaffected by alcohol, ether, benzole and am- monia. Judging by their behavior in the presence of the above re-agents, it is plain they are the crystals of a substance which must range itself in the class of neutral principles, and as nothing similar has ever been found either in healthy or abnormal blood, or in any part of the animal economy, so far as the latest chemical reports show, I propose for it the name of leukosin. This title seems appropriate, both on account of the color of the crystals and the disease in which they were discovered. The blood of leukamia is very like the natural condition of this fluid in the splenic system. Scherer first discovered in the spleen the very substances which he afterward demonstrated in this dis- ease, and the crystals often found in this organ, lozenge shapes of a reddish-yellow color, and described by many observers, Becque- rel tells us were present in great abundance in the coagula remov- ed from the heart in a case of leukamia. That the spleen is not the sole cause of the changes in the blood, is shown by the facts, that this organ is often otherwise affected without any consequent similar change, and that in some cases of leukamia it is found in a normal condition. The otlicr blood or lymph glands, on the con-