The Treatment of Chlorosis by Iron and some Other Drugs

Abstract

IT is generally agreed that chlorosis may be cured by the administration of iron preparations by the mouth, but opinions differ widely and fundamentally as to the way in which the cure is brought about. So long ago as 1821 Wohler advanced the opinion that iron is not absorbed from the alimentary canal, because he failed to detect it in the urine after giving it per o8, while Kletzinsky (1854) experimenting on himself, and finding in his fmeces as much iron as het had previously swallowed, came to the same conclusion. These views have received support from a considerable number of cotemporary and later observers. On the other hand, Becquerel, Herberger, Naase, Quevenne, and many others have believed it to be absorbed, but no rigorous proof of its absorption has ever been given. It is unnecessary to discuss the older literaturp, as the whole question has been reworked in recent years with iimproved methods and much greater accuracy. At the present time there are three chief thieories as to the modus operandi of iron. I. THB ABSORPTION THEORY.