A Study of Serological Reactions Associated with Experimental Plethora and Plethoric Anemia.

It has been the uniform experience of investigators studying experimental plethora that plethora can be artificially induced by the transfusion of blood into an homologous animal. After the plethora has reached a maximum, there frequently follows an anemia, sufficiently severe in some cases to cause death. Theories have been offered to explain the mechanism of this blood destruction but the experimental data so far accumulated have not justified a final conclusion. In order to obtain further data on the mechanism of the blood destruction following plethora, we have undertaken this study. We have employed serological methods in attempting an explanation. Others also have used similar methods in the study of this problem, but in most cases the determinations were not made quantitatively and the results were not uniform. Itami (1) found no hemolysins in the blood of transfused rabbits. Boycott and Douglas (2) (3) also obtained negative results. Ottenberg, Kaliski and Friedman (4) found both agglutinins and hemolysiniins in the blood of transfused dogs, and in a subsequent study Ottenberg and Thalheimer (5) demonstrated both of these kinds of antibodies in the blood of transfused cats. Robertson (6) reported the development of agglutinins in rabbits coincident with the development of anemia and Kambe and Komiya (7) found an agglutination titer of 1: 150 in the blood of a recipient rabbit, while Krumbhaar and Chanutin (8) found neither agglutinins nor hemolysins in their experimental rabbits.