Folic Acid Therapy and Spinal-Cord Degeneration in Pernicious Anemia

SINCE the classic description of the features of pernicious anemia by Addison in 1855, considerable progress has been made in diagnosis and therapy. The Schilling test has made accurate diagnosis possible, and the availability of vitamin B12 for parenteral use has rendered treatment easy and convenient. Nonetheless, a significant number of cases have been reported in the medical literature in which treatment with folic acid, either intentionally or inadvertently, has so altered the natural history of the disease as to obscure the diagnosis, at least as it is made on a clinical basis. Yet folic acid remains an ingredient . . .