Further Studies on Atypical Blood Elements in Anemic Newts,Triturus Viridescens

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Abstract
Newts (Triturus viridescens) brought to the laboratory during the winter and kept on a limited diet of tubificid worms, developed an anemia characterized by the appearance in the peripheral blood of atypical erythrocytes, known as pseudoerythroplastids. The blood picture did not change after intraperitoneal injections with massive doses of vitamin B12 (Merck). Animals collected during the summer did not show this anemia despite limited diet and repeated bleeding. It was suggested that the physiological condition of the newts at the time they are subjected to the anemia-inducing factors, may influence their susceptibility to the production of pseudoerythroplastids. The gross symptoms in the anemic newts differed, the majority of the animals exhibiting considerable emaciaton with a trophy of the internal organs, and approximately 15 percent of the animals remaining robust in appearance, possessing normally-sized or enlarged spleens. The latter contained great numbers of spindle-shaped pseudoerythroplatids. The formation of pseudoerythroplastids is accompanied by an apparent decrease in the response to the Feulgen reaction and by a change from sudan-negative to a slightly sudan-positive condition in the nucleus together with a gradual loss of sudanophilic bodies in the cytoplasm.