Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-08-30
CHLOROSIS
By H. Addington Bruce

NEW item has been added to the in
~ dictment against the tonsils They
now stand accused-by DR.. S. r. Salz-
man, of Toledo, Ohio-of being responsible
for the disease of chloross, otherwise known
as green sickness" and "anaemia Of the
young"
This malady, DIR. Salzman insists, is not
due merely to the lack Of some essential con-
stituent of the blood. 1t is caused by a
poisoning fro. an infection invariably located
in the tonsils.
DIR. Salzman's theory, however, is hardly
likely to be accepted without dispute by the
medical world. The conception of chlorosis
as primary anaemia is pretty firmly rooted
in the medical belief. 4
Moreover, since chlorosis shows such an
uncommon preference for attacking girls
rather than boys that some authorities call
it ''anaemia of girlhood," and since it usually
develops durins adolescence, the tendency
hitherto has been to regard it as a product
Of female adolescent stress reacting on the
bodybuilding organs to cause deficiency
in iron.
Seemingly corroborative of this view is the
prOmptness with which chlorosis yields to
iron medication. But, as Dr. Salzman points
out; after all, it is not exclusively female
disorder. And, so far as it's response to iron
medication is concerned, he suggests that
this may be the result of a neutralizing action
by iron on the toxins he believes to be set
free from infected tonsils. :
That girls far more likely than boys
to suffer from chlorosis he would attribute
to differences in food, exercise habits, and
other physiological factors lowering female
resistiveness to Infection 1t may even be,
he adds, that girls are constitutionally more
sensitive than boys to the particular toxin
to which he would attribute the symptoms of
chlorosis'
In any event, summing up his findings in
the New York Medical Record, he concludes:
1.-THE proof that the cause of chIorosis is
toxemia, the result of an infection within
the faucia1 tonsils, is easily had. If that
is the sole cause, removal of the infected
tOnsils should bring about a prompt cure
This it does.
"The relief from the symptoms of chlorosis
| Is very prompt. The subjective complaints
disappear in less than week. The improve
ment in the blood picture follows very short
ly, and this without medication whatever.
within the past year the tonsils were re-
moved from eight cases Of typical chlorosis
All Of these cases showed very prompt and
decided Improvement. Only one of these
cases had any medication after tonsillectomy.
'"This case had hemogiobin Of SO per
cent, and thought it advisable to give large
doses of iron for a period of ten days to bring
about a more rapid improvement in the blood
picture.
each of these eight cases has been seen
or heard from since, and they have all made
a complete recovery. I have not seen case
of chlorosis occur when the tonsils have been
removed in childhood"
This certainly would seem to be definite
evidence. Though, of course, it does not ex-
clude the possibility that, after all, tonsillar
Infection may be only one casual factor in
the production of ch1orosis. It would hardly
cate radical tonsillar operations in every chic
rotic case.
Copyright, 1921, by the Associated News
papers.)