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Centenary Review Article
Figure 4. First issue of Haematologica.
nosographic problem of lymphogranuloma and its differ- entiation from tuberculous granuloma,22 and another pathologist, Antonio Cesaris-Demel (1866-1938), pub- lished a paper on the stages of the diapedesis process.23 There was also a very important paper by Ferrata on the pathogenesis of pernicious anemia.24 Ferrata reported the complete disappearance of the megaloblastic erythro- poiesis of the embryonic period as soon as the hematopoietic function of the liver begins. Ferrata's paper was a preliminary work which hinted at the therapeutic turning point that occurred a few years later with the introduction of hepatic treatment of pernicious anemia, which results in the rapid disappearance of megaloblastic erythropoiesis; as in the normal embryo, the liver’s initial embryonic function makes the megaloblasts disappear. A few years later, Ferrata reviewed this treatment in the light of his 1920 observation in Haematologica.* Ferrata probably also made some attempts to treat patients with animal liver, but unfortunately he used cooked tissue, and did not observe any tangible effect.25 The problem of treating pernicious anemia was taken up in a new way in subsequent works. Enrico Greppi (1896-1969) of the Medical Clinic of the University of Milan reported the
*Carlo Bernasconi, personal communication. Carlo Bernasconi (1929-2014), formerly Professor of Hematology at the University of Pavia.
Figure 5. Camillo Golgi.
case of a young man suffering from pernicious anemia and dyspeptic disorders of a probably infectious nature who was completely cured by transfusion.26 Another remarkable work on the subject, published in Haematologica in German, came from Zoltan Alexander Leitner (1899-1981)27 of the “Charité” Hospital in Berlin. He discussed the studies of George Richards Minot (1885- 1950), George Hoyt Whipple (1878-1976), and William Parry Murphy (1892-1987) on the treatment of pernicious anemia with uncooked liver and with intramuscular liver extracts, which would earn them the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1934.28 Leitner suggested that extremely debilitated patients who required urgent intervention, or those in whom the gastro-enteric tract was seriously compromised, thus preventing adequate digestion, need- ed to receive a blood transfusion.
One of the most hotly debated hematologic arguments at the beginning of the 1920s was the origin of platelets from megakaryocytes. As many as 5 of the 31 articles published in the first volume of Haematologica dealt with the genesis of these corpuscles. In Ferrata’s 1918 book Le Emopatie29 (The Hemopathies), specific chapters were devoted to the various hypotheses:
− “Are platelets living and independent cells?”
− “Are platelets elements of variable and multiple ori- gin, from erythrocytes, leukocytes and possibly from the vasal endothelium?”
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