HEMOGLOBIN REGENERATION IN THE CHRONIC HEMORRHAGIC ANEMIA OF DOGS (WHIPPLE) : I. THE EFFECT OF IRON AND PROTEIN FEEDING

1. A group of dogs on a standard salmon bread diet with a slowly regenerating anemia were studied. The addition of liver to this diet during a 2 week period promoted a definitely greater regeneration of hemoglobin than did the addition of an amount of inorganic iron which was equivalent to that contained in the added liver. The more effective result attained with liver cannot, therefore, be attributed solely to the iron intake. 2. The greater response to liver is not due to its content of amino acids which are present in casein, since a diet containing an exactly similar amount of calories, iron and protein nitrogen, made up of inorganic iron and casein does not cause a greater response than that obtained by the addition of that amount of inorganic iron alone to the standard basal diet. 3. Furthermore, the salmon bread diet does not produce a deficiency of the amino acids represented in casein, since dogs eating the high protein (casein) Cowgill dog ration show the same basal hemoglobin regeneration rate and a similar greater response to liver than to inorganic iron. The Cowgill ration, however, supplies some non-ferrous factor involved in hemoglobin regeneration which is not contained, to as great a degree at least, in the salmon bread. 4. Whipple's chronic hemorrhagic anemia of dogs serves as an accurate assay method for measuring the hemoglobin producing power of a substance. Quantitatively reproducible responses can be obtained.