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" SIDEROCYTES " IN MAN ?
172 American Doctors for Britain According to information recently received from the American Red Cross some 80 United States doctors who have applied to help in our medical services are at present being considered for acceptance, in addition to one who has already arrived and is at work in a civil hospital and four who are on their way to this country. (Miss HoRSBURGH replying to Sir HENRY MORRIS-JONES.) Pasfeurisation of Stale Milk Mr. W. LEACH asked the President of the Board of Education whether he was aware of the unsatisfactory condition, supply and distribution of milk delivered to Southport schools, and of a report of the Southport health department which indicated that one sample of milk must have been stale before it was pasteurised ; and whether any regulations exist which forbade the pasteurisation of stale milk-Mr. R. A. BuTLER replied : I am aware of the difficulties which have arisen in Southport about the supply of milk to schools, and my department have been in communication with the Ministry of Food, who have taken the matter up actively. I am informed by the Minister of Health that the conditions prescribed for pasteurised milk include a bacterial standard for the milk after, but not before, pasteurisation. Grants for Medical Research
Replying to a question Sir JOHN ANDERSON stated that the grant-in-aid of the Medical Research Council exclusive of a special capital grant of joe70,000 for building in 1939-40 was jE195,000 in each of the years 1938-41.
Diphtheria Immunisation
to
the Editor
SIDEROCYTES " IN MAN ? SIR,—The presence of iron in the haemoglobin molecule cannot be demonstrated histochemically. It has recently been discovered that normal mouse and rat embryos and newborn young have in their circulation a small percentage of erythrocytes in which the presence of some non-haemoglobin iron can be demonstrated by means of the prussian-blue reaction (Gruneberg, H. ivature, " 1941, p. 114). These " iron cells " or sideroJuly 26, " in increased in numbers an inherited cytes are"greatly anaemia in the mouse, which is associated with the recessive gene for flexed-tail and belly-spot. It would be of interest to discover whether the presence of siderocytes is an embryonic feature confined to rodents, or whether it also occurs in other mammals, particularly in I have recently examined blood-films (umbilicalman. cord blood kindly supplied by Dr. H. H. F. Barns) of two full-term baby girls. It seems that a very few siderocytes occur in these films, but on account of their scarcity I do not regard the question as settled beyond doubt. It would thus be desirable to confirm this finding in the blood of premature babies, or, better still, in the blood of embryos obtained in therapeutic abortions. As no such material is accessible to me at present, I should be most grateful for suitable blood-films (thin, fixed in absolute methyl alcohol, unstained, with data about the approximate age and length offoatus). HANS GRÜNEBERG. Pathology Department, Mount Vernon Hospital, "
question Mr. E. Bxowrr announced that statistics will be obtained from all local authorities in due course which will show, as from Jan. 1, 1940, to what extent Northwood, Middlesex. notification of diphtheria has occurred among children under 15 who have been immunised. FOUR PHASES OF BIRTH Special Clothing for Disabled Men SIR,—Sir Joseph Barcroft’s fascinating lecture is full Stump socks and certain other garments needed by disabled of points of first-rate importance for midwifery. His ex-service men have recently been exempted from rabiioning. revelation of the state of semi-asphyxia of the fœtus in Arrangements will be made in due course to meet any further the last few weeks before birth emphasises the importance needs of persons who for medical or other special reasons of paying particular attention to the maternal circulation require more than the normal clothing ration, but I cannot during these last weeks of pregnancy. It is still all say at present whether persons with artificial legs are likely too common to find women coming to term with severe to fall into this category. (Captain C. WATERHOUSE replying anaemia and less commonly with circulatory disease. to Sir SMEDLEY CROOKE.) The state of semi-asphyxia in which the child is born adds interest to the undoubtedly successful results which Hospitals and Army Road Casualties attended the use of the Sparklet resuscitator, although Sir WILLIAM WAYLAND asked the Secretary of State for War this has somewhat fallen into disuse since more elaborate what responsibility the War Office accepted for reimbursing methods of giving carbon dioxide have been used. It a hospital for the cost of a patient injured by an Army seems that the effect of the resuscitator was not due to vehicle, even though the cause of the accident might have the carbon dioxide at all, but to the impingement on the been purely accidental or due to contributory negligence on the part of the injured person, or when the cause of the accident baby’s face of intermittent streams of gaswhich had been chilled by rapid’expansion. When warmer carbon was in dispute.-Mr. D. SANDYS, financial secretary to the dioxide was used no such stimulating effect was obtained. War Office, repliedWhen a person is afforded emergency This confirms clinically Barcroft’s finding that increased treatment, as the result of an accident arising out of the use carbon dioxide in the blood in the foetus does not stimuof a War Department vehicle on duty on a road, claims are late for of such treatment Funds the cost respiration but that the nasal area is extremely accepted against Army sensitive to stimulation which excites respiratory moveat the rates and in the circumstances specified in section 16 ment. Your excellent abstract, when stressing the of the Road Traffic Act 1934, notwithstanding that that part effect of asphyxia on inhibition (p. 94), may mislead on of the act does not apply to the Crown. Refund of other hospital expenses is considered in connexion with any claim this point, for, unless my memory of the original lecture at Aberdeen is at fault, Sir Joseph pointed out and, to compensation arising out of the accident. In general, the demonstrated on the film that at term clamping the War Office accepts liability in respect of such expenses to the umbilical vessels had practically no power to initiate extent to which a private employer would be liable in similar circumstances. respiratory movements compared to the effect of cutaneous stimulation. Home Guard Medical Officers His further observations on the effect of cutaneous H. D. a said R. MARGESSoN replying to Captain question stimulation- on respiration suggest, what I believe is a that instructions will be issued shortly authorising the that some of our very gentle metliods of treating appointment, where necessary, of medical officers to Home fact, newborn babies fail in their object, and I am sure that in Guard companies, addition to the officers at present sometimes a sharp slap will start an asphyxiated baby authorised for battalions. breathing when the recommended gentle rubbing of the Lack of Canteens in Scottish Mines skin and so on is quite ineffective. The final sentence in Replying to questions Mr. T. JOHNSTON said that the your abstract that ,. sensory impulses from the skin policy of the Government was to provide adequate nutrition heighten the tendency towards respiration " is of the for all classes of workers. Any disparity in the provision of The remark that the very greatest clinical importance. food canteens was receiving urgent attention. At the coal factors making for movement are " stimuli from the nose, or muscles reaching a brain of exalted senpits in Scotland they were exceptionally badly off ; they had ,mouth, skin " only two canteens in active operation. sitivity also seems to me important, because it suggests that what is required in the asphyxiated baby is not a direct respiratory stimulant, if such exists, but something ST. JOHN OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL, JERUSALEM.——Dr. Norman which will exalt the sensitivity of the brain. A while Manson has been appointed warden of the hospital in succession to Sir John Strathearn, who has resigned owing ago (Lancet, 1941, 1, 433)reported the successful result of injecting 0.5 c.cm. of Cardiazol-Ephedrine into the the office for twenty-two years. to ill health after Answering
-
Letters
a
holding
’
Replying to a question Sir JOHN ANDERSON stated that the grant-in-aid of the Medical Research Council exclusive of a special capital grant of joe70,000 for building in 1939-40 was jE195,000 in each of the years 1938-41.
Diphtheria Immunisation
to
the Editor
SIDEROCYTES " IN MAN ? SIR,—The presence of iron in the haemoglobin molecule cannot be demonstrated histochemically. It has recently been discovered that normal mouse and rat embryos and newborn young have in their circulation a small percentage of erythrocytes in which the presence of some non-haemoglobin iron can be demonstrated by means of the prussian-blue reaction (Gruneberg, H. ivature, " 1941, p. 114). These " iron cells " or sideroJuly 26, " in increased in numbers an inherited cytes are"greatly anaemia in the mouse, which is associated with the recessive gene for flexed-tail and belly-spot. It would be of interest to discover whether the presence of siderocytes is an embryonic feature confined to rodents, or whether it also occurs in other mammals, particularly in I have recently examined blood-films (umbilicalman. cord blood kindly supplied by Dr. H. H. F. Barns) of two full-term baby girls. It seems that a very few siderocytes occur in these films, but on account of their scarcity I do not regard the question as settled beyond doubt. It would thus be desirable to confirm this finding in the blood of premature babies, or, better still, in the blood of embryos obtained in therapeutic abortions. As no such material is accessible to me at present, I should be most grateful for suitable blood-films (thin, fixed in absolute methyl alcohol, unstained, with data about the approximate age and length offoatus). HANS GRÜNEBERG. Pathology Department, Mount Vernon Hospital, "
question Mr. E. Bxowrr announced that statistics will be obtained from all local authorities in due course which will show, as from Jan. 1, 1940, to what extent Northwood, Middlesex. notification of diphtheria has occurred among children under 15 who have been immunised. FOUR PHASES OF BIRTH Special Clothing for Disabled Men SIR,—Sir Joseph Barcroft’s fascinating lecture is full Stump socks and certain other garments needed by disabled of points of first-rate importance for midwifery. His ex-service men have recently been exempted from rabiioning. revelation of the state of semi-asphyxia of the fœtus in Arrangements will be made in due course to meet any further the last few weeks before birth emphasises the importance needs of persons who for medical or other special reasons of paying particular attention to the maternal circulation require more than the normal clothing ration, but I cannot during these last weeks of pregnancy. It is still all say at present whether persons with artificial legs are likely too common to find women coming to term with severe to fall into this category. (Captain C. WATERHOUSE replying anaemia and less commonly with circulatory disease. to Sir SMEDLEY CROOKE.) The state of semi-asphyxia in which the child is born adds interest to the undoubtedly successful results which Hospitals and Army Road Casualties attended the use of the Sparklet resuscitator, although Sir WILLIAM WAYLAND asked the Secretary of State for War this has somewhat fallen into disuse since more elaborate what responsibility the War Office accepted for reimbursing methods of giving carbon dioxide have been used. It a hospital for the cost of a patient injured by an Army seems that the effect of the resuscitator was not due to vehicle, even though the cause of the accident might have the carbon dioxide at all, but to the impingement on the been purely accidental or due to contributory negligence on the part of the injured person, or when the cause of the accident baby’s face of intermittent streams of gaswhich had been chilled by rapid’expansion. When warmer carbon was in dispute.-Mr. D. SANDYS, financial secretary to the dioxide was used no such stimulating effect was obtained. War Office, repliedWhen a person is afforded emergency This confirms clinically Barcroft’s finding that increased treatment, as the result of an accident arising out of the use carbon dioxide in the blood in the foetus does not stimuof a War Department vehicle on duty on a road, claims are late for of such treatment Funds the cost respiration but that the nasal area is extremely accepted against Army sensitive to stimulation which excites respiratory moveat the rates and in the circumstances specified in section 16 ment. Your excellent abstract, when stressing the of the Road Traffic Act 1934, notwithstanding that that part effect of asphyxia on inhibition (p. 94), may mislead on of the act does not apply to the Crown. Refund of other hospital expenses is considered in connexion with any claim this point, for, unless my memory of the original lecture at Aberdeen is at fault, Sir Joseph pointed out and, to compensation arising out of the accident. In general, the demonstrated on the film that at term clamping the War Office accepts liability in respect of such expenses to the umbilical vessels had practically no power to initiate extent to which a private employer would be liable in similar circumstances. respiratory movements compared to the effect of cutaneous stimulation. Home Guard Medical Officers His further observations on the effect of cutaneous H. D. a said R. MARGESSoN replying to Captain question stimulation- on respiration suggest, what I believe is a that instructions will be issued shortly authorising the that some of our very gentle metliods of treating appointment, where necessary, of medical officers to Home fact, newborn babies fail in their object, and I am sure that in Guard companies, addition to the officers at present sometimes a sharp slap will start an asphyxiated baby authorised for battalions. breathing when the recommended gentle rubbing of the Lack of Canteens in Scottish Mines skin and so on is quite ineffective. The final sentence in Replying to questions Mr. T. JOHNSTON said that the your abstract that ,. sensory impulses from the skin policy of the Government was to provide adequate nutrition heighten the tendency towards respiration " is of the for all classes of workers. Any disparity in the provision of The remark that the very greatest clinical importance. food canteens was receiving urgent attention. At the coal factors making for movement are " stimuli from the nose, or muscles reaching a brain of exalted senpits in Scotland they were exceptionally badly off ; they had ,mouth, skin " only two canteens in active operation. sitivity also seems to me important, because it suggests that what is required in the asphyxiated baby is not a direct respiratory stimulant, if such exists, but something ST. JOHN OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL, JERUSALEM.——Dr. Norman which will exalt the sensitivity of the brain. A while Manson has been appointed warden of the hospital in succession to Sir John Strathearn, who has resigned owing ago (Lancet, 1941, 1, 433)reported the successful result of injecting 0.5 c.cm. of Cardiazol-Ephedrine into the the office for twenty-two years. to ill health after Answering
-
Letters
a
holding
’