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Despite the mystery that has surrounded the spleen in the past, and the ignorance that still persists with reference to the exact nature and variety of its physiologic functions, two important activities are now definitely established as centering in this organ: one, the reservoir capacity for red and white blood cells;1the other, the phagocytic, destructive activity of the reticuloendothelial elements, the clasmatocytes of the splenic pulp, for old or injured erythrocytes,2granulocytes,1fand blood platelets.3Under physiologic conditions there is maintained in health a nice balance between bone marrow hematopoiesis and these splenic functions of cell storage and cell death. To express succinctly this reciprocal relationship between the organs subserving these antithetical functions, Krumbhaar4proposed in 1923 the term "hemolytopoietic equilibrium." It has been the experience in medicine that, whenever any physiologic function is recognized for any organ, a disease entity due to a
Charles A. Doan (1935) studied this question.