Leucocythaemia is practically - and perhaps on sound theoretic principles - to be considered as a malignant neoplasm, differing from sarcoma mainly in the mobility of its cells. There is no authentic record of a cure, though improvement has been noted under arsenic and other older methods of treatment and Roentgen rays have produced marked, possibly permanent, improvement. Some acute leucocythaemias seem to be infectious and while all such cases reported have died, there is the theoretic possibility of cure, under this etiologic hypothesis.

While, at present, the dietetic or other treatment of leucocythaemia is discouraging, there is a general indication for administering an abundance of easily digested food, predigesting if necessary.

Pseudoleucocythaemia has variously been regarded as a tuberculous or other form of adenitis or as a form of sarcoma and hence analogous to leucocythaemia. The occasional occurrence of mixed types of leucocythaemia and pseudoleucocythaemia, favors the latter view, though, doubtless, tuberculosis and other conditions are included in the clinical diagnosis. The same remarks as to prognosis and diet apply here, as in the case of leucocvthaemia.

(Hyper) Leucocytosis, is an indication of inflammatory, especially septic, inflammation, various forms of haemorrhage etc., rather than a clinical entity. The diet should be applied to the underlying condition. Two cases of the author, proved to be due to scurvy, contracted in the midst of abundance, simply on account of a dislike for fresh vegetables and fruit.

Leucopoenia, is frequently found in delicate adults and children, who have no special disease but who lack vitality and strength. To what decree the blood condition is the cause and to what degree it is the effect of the general cachexia, is not decided. Those cases are to be treateil mainly on hygienic and dietetic principles. Cold spinal douches or sponges, and vigorous rubbing and of especial value, particularly in children. The diet should be easily digested, varied and abundant and should include a rather liberal supply of meat. There is a rather hypothetic indication for nucleins and purin-containing foods, such as the various viscera.

Anaemias. While it has been demonstrated that iron is at least absorbed and probably assimilated when administered in inorganic forms, the best form of iron is haemoglobin or some closely related compound. Various proprietary preparations are on the market, including bovinine which is essentially a preserved blood. If a slaughter house is accessible, fresh blood can be obtained every day or two and as much as a tumblerful may be taken daily. The taste is not disagreeable but most patients have an aesthetic repugnance toward it which can only occasionally be overcome. Meat is. on the whole, the best form of administering iron and, usually, patients who continue anaemic on a liberal diet containing 200 - 300 grams of meat daily, will not improve on any concentrated preparation of haemoglobin or iron. In other words, anaemia is not a special form of starvation but a failure of assimilation.

Red bone marrow and spleen may be used to stimulate haema-topoiesis but they are by no means invariably successful.

Some authorities consider the diminished alkalinity of the blood the main factor in at least certain forms of anaemia. Some go so far as to speak of the blood as acid but it is never so during life in any but a transcendental sense. The measurement of the alkalinity of the blood is a tedious chemic process. For clinical purposes, it may be held that if the 24-hour urine has an acidity of 35 degrees, the blood is sufficiently alkaline but that if the urin-arv acidity is more than 50 degrees, alkali is needed in the system. (35 degrees of acidity means that any given amount of liquid, usually 10 c.c, is neutralized by 35% of its volume of decinormal alkali solution. For the present purpose, phenol phthalein should be used as an indicator and the reading made at the first appearance of a faint but unmistakable pink tint.)

Sodium bicarbonate, about a teaspoonful daily, or various fruit juices, acid in themselves, but decomposed into alkaline carbonates in the body, may be used to counteract excessive acidity.

Certain cases of pernicious anaemia are associated with achylia gastrica, while other cases of either condition may occur without the other. Other cases of pernicious anaemia, so-considered, are characterized by intestinal putrefaction, signalized by indicanuria, foul smelling, gassy faeces etc. Anaemia accompanies Addison's disease and is undoubtedly due to failure of pancreatic and intestinal as well as gastric digestive power, or to a general failure of assimilative functions. Whether there is such an entity as pernicious anaemia, splenic anaemia etc., is doubtful. There is some reason to believe that hepatic failure explains both the enlarged spleen and the anaemia in the latter condition.

In any such case, the dietetic and other treatment should be directed toward what is believed to be the underlying condition.

Poly (Erythro) Cythaemia or true plethora, is a very rare condition, and no definite knowledge exists as to the dietetic management.

Chemic disturbances of the blood, including hydraemia, uraemia, cholaemia etc., are due to disturbances of other organs, chiefly the liver and kidneys, or to exogenic influences. While anaemic blood is relatively hydraemic, a practical as well as acar demic distinction must be drawn between such cases and those in which there is genuine failure to withdraw water from the system, mainly on account of renal failure. In the latter case, the kidneys themselves may be at fault, or the blood pressure may be low, mainly on account of cardiac weakness, or various combinations of lesions may occur. Such conditions will be discussed under the appropriate headings but the general indication may be stated to consist in the administration of an abundant, easily digested diet, as free as possible from purin bodies, oxalates etc.

In true hydraemia, which usually includes more or less waterlogging (dropsy) of the body generally, the indication is to reduce salines. especially sodium chlorid. to a minimum, so as to force the body to absorb liquid containing salts in solution, from the tissues. Meantime. very little water should be given. On the other hand, in relative hydraemia. without accumulation of water in the lymph cavities 'including the serous sacs rather liberal amounts of water and salts should be administered, sometimes by mouth. sometimes by rectum, sometimes hypodermatically. since -well filled vessels and a blood capable of performing osmotic functions, even though deficient in cells, meet a large share of the demands on the circulatory function and tend to enable the system to repair the defect in blood cells.