Mesothorium) Necrosis" makes it necessary for us to report our unfinished observations on the danger of the accumulation of radioactive substances in the body and their effect on the hematopoietolytic systems.2 Hoffman's contribution is based mainly on a survey, from the statistician's point of view, of some five deaths and twelve living cases, occurring among girls employed in painting the dials of watches and clocks with luminous paint. He found that they developed a very resistant infection of the jaw, with buccal lesions and marked anemia. His idea was that a distinct occupational poisoning had occurred, the paint entering the body by way of the gastro-intestinal tract as a result of the habit of pointing in their mouths the tips of the brushes used in painting.The recent illness and death of one of these patients gave us the opportunity, for the first time, of obtaining accurate clinical and pathologic data for this study.In addition, we·have under our observation cases rang¬ ing in severity from mild ones, showing only slight necrosis of the alveolar borders and without anemia or leukopenia, to severe ones, showing profound anemia with extensive, almost complete destruction of the upper and lower maxilla. In the fatal case we have demonstrated, by means of electrometers, gamma radi¬ ation from the body during life and measurable amounts of emanation in the expired air. In the organs after death, amounts of radioactive elements were found, sufficient to be determined quantitatively by alpha radiation and penetrative gamma rays, notably From the medical service of St. Mary's Hospital, Orange, N. J., the pathologic department of the City Hospital, Newark, N. J., and the office of the County Physician of Essex County, N J. 1. Hoffman, F. L.: Radium (Mesothorium) Necrosis, J. A. M. A. 85:961 (Sept. 26) 1925.2. We have coined the word hematopoietolytic to designate two very important and distinct systems: first, the hematopoietic system, which is composed of the erythroblastic, leukoblastic, thromboblastic and lymphoblastic centers, situated, in the adult, chiefly in the marrow, lymph nodes and spleen, and which forms the main elements of the blood; second, the lytic or reticulo-endothelial system, situated mainly in the same organs, but separate from and adjacent to these centers, the chief function of which is the destruction of erythrocytes and the phagocytizing of foreign particles in the blood by means of its chief cell, the histocyte. in the spleen, liver and bones, which represent the largest part of the reticulo-endothelial system.It will be several months before quantitative read¬ ings can be completed on these organs and the lesions produced in animals, but we are satisfied that they contain a mixture of mesothorium, with its decaying products, and radium, in what appears to be lethal quantities. In another case, in which there is a well marked anemia, we have shown emanation in the expired air in large and measurable quantities coming from actual deposits of mesothorium and radium in the body, the bloo...
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