Relation Between Cell Count, Cell Volume and Hemoglobin Content of Venous Blood of Normal Young Women

The need for a definite accepted figure, expressed in grams per one hundred cubic centimeters, as the standard of average hemoglobin content of normal blood has been emphasized recenty. 1 Few physicians, however, realize that the figures usually given in the texts for average normal red cell counts (5 million for men and 4.5 million for women) are apparently based on only four blood examinations made in 1852 2 and 1854 3 by methods which are now obsolete. These figures have since been copied from one textbook to another without experimental confirmation. The increasing use of volume index, saturation index and color index determinations in the differential diagnosis of anemia demands that the normal averages and ranges of variation in these observations be determined accurately. In this article we present the results of accurate red cell counts, hemoglobin determinations and cell volume determinations on 100 healthy young women, and give the average and