The marrow may also be administered raw, on bread; but this method is usually repulsive to the patient.
Physiological Action. — An indirect influence as to the action of bone-marrow may be obtained from recently-made ex periments by Trambusti, which have shown that bone-marrow reacts in the course of an infective diphtheritic proc ess in rabbits with great functional activ ity of the cellular elements of which it is composed. This energetic functional ac tivity of the cellular elements tends more toward the function of secretion than to that of reproduction. The increased function of secretion shows itself micro scopically both by a greater quantity of granulations in the interior of the cell plasma, and by a greater quantity of free granulations. The great functional activity of the cellular elements is dimin ished, with the progress of the infection, by the accumulation of a greater quan tity of toxic material within the organ ism. Although this material in small dose stimulates the above-mentioned energy, yet it here acts as a paralyzant and in producing necrosis. The results which he has obtained from the use of bone-marrow justify the belief that the leucocytes produce a substance which is bactericidal and antitoxic. Its effects
have been ascribed in the presence of iron.
Whether or not it is anything mo:e than an assimilable preparation of iron is not conclusively proved. Bone-mar row, especially red marrow, is certainly a readily assimilated, organic compound of iron, and is a valuable addition to the resources of the physician in cases of ordinary chlorosis and anemia and in some cases of blood impoverishment of a more intractable kind. W. E. Quine (Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., Aug. 6, 96).
Any action bone-marrow may have must be due to some ingredient which stimulates blood-formation, and not to iron, or to any other constituent which might be directly used to build up red blood-corpuscles. Stengel (Tiler. Gaz., '96).
Therapeutics.—Not much can be said in favor of bone-marrow as a therapeu tic agent. In pernicious anaemia it in no way approaches arsenic in value; in anemia indications would seem to show that it is not as reliable as iron. In leu cocythTmia, leukwmia, and Hodgkin's disease it seems worthy of more extended trial.