Megaloblastic Anaemia Associated with Adult Scurvy

Abstract

Nowadays scurvy is fortunately rare. Cases are still found among the inmates of common lodging houses and those living alone, where age, decrepitude, or apathy may have led to an inadequate dietary intake. Rigid dieting as in peptic ulcer' may be an unusual cause. While the blood picture may show little change in the milder cases, anaemia of variable degree occurs in most adults with scurvy. It is usually normocytic, but may be hypochromic, or occasionally macrocytic.'8' 3 Although the peripheral blood picture has been well described,2 3, 8,11,14,18 few authors have carried out serial examinations of the bone marrow. It has been our custom to carry out marrow punctures in these cases, and we report here three scorbutic patients who presented with macrocytic anaemias, had megaloblastic marrows, and showed recovery on ascorbic acid.