RE: Radium -Reply

[Ivor Surveyor <isurveyor@vianet.net.au>]

At 10:10 AM 09-10-98 -0500, you wrote:
>Charlie Willis wrote in part:
>
>> Her doctors said that she died of
>> Pernicious Anemia (the inability of the intestines to absorb 
>> vitamin B-12) which, I
>> am told by the medical folk, would not have been confused 
>> with leukemia. 


Radsafers, 

I wonder if any medical historian can clear this matter up.   The study of
medical history of famous people has been practised for a very long time.
Even if it may or may not be a breech of medical confidentiality.  

In the case of Madam Curie the matter is most intriguing and of great
historical importance. 

If Leukemia, what cell line? and is this a radiogenic leukemia? 

If Aplastic anaemia,  Was this an example of aleukemic leukemia 
My understanding is that a aleukemic leukemia was a diagnosis made when
patient had a peripheral blood leukopenia, and leukemic cells in bone
marrow. A more modern equivalent may be <the myelodysplastic syndrome>. 

A diagnosis of Aplastic anaemia would raise the question  of drugs,
chemical toxic agents and infection as possible aetiological agents.

Pernicious anaemia, the most likely of the megaloblastic anaemias to be
considered in differential diagnosis. I think that by 1934, the
relationship between, atrophic gastritis, and megaloblastic anaemia was
well known. Treatment with liver extract  was discovered about 1926. 

Does anybody know if her medical notes are available to historical study by
appropriate scholars?  

>
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