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INFLUENCE OF FOOD ON THE BLOOD. 339
In rabbits and to a less extent in dogs, Popel found that complete absti-
nence had a tendency to increase the specific gravity of the blood. The
amount of fat in the blood may be somewhat increased in starvation
because the fat is taken up from the fat deposits and carried to the various
organs by the blood (N. Schulz, Daddi ’).
After a rich meal, or after secretion of digestive juices or absorption
of nutritive liquids, the relative number of blood-corpuscles may be
increased or diminished (Buntzen, Leichtenstern). The number of
white blood-corpuscles may be considerably increased after a diet rich
in proteins. After a diet rich in fat the plasma becomes, even after a
short time, more or less milky-white, like an emulsion. According to
Just, in rabbits, on the contrary, the various food-stuffs such as carbohy-
drate, fat and protein or peptone has no influence on the number of red
and white corpuscles, which he considers as a proof for the difference
between the digestive processes in carnivora and herbivora (rabbits).
The composition of the food acts essentially on the amount of haemo-
globin in the blood. Subbotin has observed in dogs after a one-sided
feeding with food rich in carbohydrates that the amount of haemoglobin
sank, from the physiological average of 137.5 p. m. to 103.2-93.7 p. m.
Tsuboi 2
has also shown in experiments on rabbits and dogs that with
an insufficient diet of bread and potatoes, where the body gave up pro-
tein and contained relatively considerable carbohydrate, the amount
of haemoglobin decreased and the blood became richer in water. Accord-
ing to Leichtenstern, a gradual increase in the amount of haemoglobin
is found to take place in the blood of human beings on enriching the food,
and according to the same investigator the blood of lean persons is gen-
erally somewhat richer in haemoglobin than blood from fat ones of the
same age. The addition of iron salts to the food greatly influences
the number of blood-corpuscles and especially the amount of haemoglobin
they contain. The action of the iron salts is obscure.3
There does not
seem to be any doubt that the iron contained in the food in the form
of organic compounds is active, but also iron salts and therapeutic iron.
According to Bunge and his pupils the iron preparations act indirectly
only. They may combine with the sulphureted hydrogen of the intes-
tinal canal and thereby prevent the iron associated in the food as assim-
1
Popel, Arch, des scienc. biol. de St. P€tersbourg, 4, 354; Schulz, Pfluger’s Arch.,
65; Daddi, Maly’s Jahresber., 30.
2
Just, Centralbl. f. Physiol., 23; Subbotin, 1. c; Tsuboi, Zeitschr. f. Biologie, 44.
3
See Bunge, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 9; Hausermann, ibid., 23, where the
works of Woltering, Gaule, Hall, Hochhaus, and Quincke are cited (the same work
contains a table of the quantity of iron in various foods); Kunkel, Pfluger’s Arch.,
61; Macallum, Journal of Physiol., 16; Abderhalden, Zeitschr. f. Biologie, 39.
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