The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-09-11
WEAK BLOOD AND POOR
 ASSIMILATION

In any type of anemia or weak blood the assimilation or the power to digest and utilize food is of course an important factor in treat ment. Likewise, the state of diges- tion, the functional efficiency of the stomach and intestine determines the patients ability to assimilate iron or other remedies which may be administered incidentally, or essential elements present in cer- tain natural foods.
 In everyday anemia or weakness of blood secondary to various con- ditions we haven't time to review ] now, there is generally no serious impairment of the power to assimi- late the natural iron in food-pro- vided the patient receives natural food which contains iron-and therefore there is little to be gained by taking iron incidentally. If neither lack of sufficient food iron nor faulty assimilation is operating
 it is futile to try to cure the ane-
 mia with iron. The sensible course
 Is rather to find out what is caus-
 ing the anemia, whether it be oc- | cult bleeding, chronic drug or
 chemical poisoning, incipient tu- | berculosis or some silent or slightly
 troublesome septic focus, and direct the treatment toward removing the cause.
 Speaking of anmeia or weak
 blood, it may be well to clarify one or two popular misconceptions. The blood doesn't turn to water" even
 In the severest degree of anemia;
 1t merely contains less of the red coloring matter (hemoglobin) or a
 diminished number of red corpus cles or both. Blood is always red, never blue. Only the expert eye can detect the difference in the normal red of healthy blood. In anemia there is not less quantity of blood in the body than in health, so the anemic individual needs not more blood but strengthening of the blood in hemoglobin or in corpus cular richness or both.
 Hemoglobin is the pigment in the red blood corpuscles. In the lungs or gills it combines loosely with oxygen, which it carries to the cells of the body, picking up carbon di- oxide from the cells or tissues to carry back to the lungs. Hemoglo- bin is protoid substance contain ing iron. It constitutes IA per cent of the weight of healthy blood. The amount of iron in it is one part in 800. Hemoglobin may combine not only with oxygen and carbon diox- ide (carbonic acid gas) but also with carbon monoxide and with ni- trous oxide (laughing gas). It has a greater affinity for carbon mon oxide than 1t has for oxygen, but carbon dioxide is capable of dis sociating the deadly carbon mon oxide from the hemoglobin in the blood, and for that reason carbon monoxide passing or poisoning is treated with mixture of 5 to 10 per cent of carbon dioxide and oxygen or air administered from an inhal- ator by means of prone pressure
 (Schaefer's) artificial respiration. Hemoglobin is the vital essential of internal or tissue respiration or internal combustion or metabolism or call 1t just life.
 While we are examining the blood it may be we'll to mention a few other facts. The body of a healthy adult contains from 10 to II pints of blood. An adult may recover from loss of as much as two quarts of blood. Reaction of the blood Is always alkaline, never acid in life. The blood in the arteries is brighter red than that in the veins. There are ap- proximately five million red cor puscles in each cubic millimeter of healthy blood--or thirty million in each drop, unless my arithmetic is as bad as usual.
 nIlstake
 My daughter by mistake put some of your precipitation med icine in her eyes, and her eyes feel as though she had sand in them