Experimental Goat's Milk Anemia

Many reports have appeared, especially in the German literature, concerning a pernicious anemia-like syndrome occurring in infants fed with goat's milk. 1 György 2 has recently reported such cases which responded to liver but not to iron therapy. Rominger, Bomskov, et al., 3 have reported the occurrence of a pernicious anemia picture in young white rats fed on goat's milk. The erythrocyte counts decreased rapidly without corresponding decreases in the hemoglobin. This anemia did not respond to iron therapy but responded to liver extracts effective in pernicious anemia. Von Haam and Beard 4 also have observed a hyperchromic character of the anemia in rats during the first weeks of feeding with goat's milk. György 2 states that he was unsuccessful in producing a hyperchromic anemia in rats by this method. The experiments reported in this paper show no evidence of a specific type of anemia in white rats fed on goat's milk.

Three litters of 6 albino rats each, of the Wistar strain, were weaned at 23 days and put into individual glass cages. Their weights averaged 40-45 gm. They were fed exclusively on goat's milk∗ which was collected directly into clean glass containers at the dairy and delivered to the laboratory every other day. Erythrocyte counts were performed with Bureau of Standards equipment and the hemoglobins with the Newcomer apparatus standardized by the oxygen capacity technique. Erythrocyte counting pipettes and micro-colorimeter cups were used in the hemoglobin determinations. Reticulocyte counts were performed by the method of Cunningham. 6 Cover slips containing brilliant Cresyl blue and Hood were allowed to be in apposition several minutes before making the smears in order to insure complete staining of the reticulocytes.

This series of 18 rats received a goat's milk diet for a period of 65 days.