Paper
Remarks on the Nature and Treatment of Pernicious Anæmia
Published May 4, 1895 · R. Stockman
British Medical Journal
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Abstract
IN this paper I shall endeavour to show that pernicious anaemia is not a disease in itself, but is a high degree of anaemia usually following on numerous remote or predisposing causes, all of them well recognised as tending to produce the anaemic state; that in certain individuals the anaemia induced by these causes tends to bring on degenerative changes in the blood vessels, which lead in turn to the occurrence of numerous capillary haemorrhages all over the body; and that it is the persistent and long-continued duration of these small internal bleedings, assisted often by larger external ones, which confers on certain cases of anaemia the fatal, or "pernicious," or "progressive" character of the illness. The most obvious symptoms which a typical case of pernicious anaemia presents result largely from long-continued deficient supply of oxygen to the tissues, due to an excessive diminution of red corpuscles and of hmemoglobin. It is hardly necessary to enumerate them at length, but stated broadly they are as follows: The patient, usually stoutish though sometimes emaciated, presents an extremely pallid appearance with a yellowish tinge of the skin; there is excessive languor, debility, and apathy, with dyspncea and palpitation
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