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Introduction It has been known since 1903 1 that clinical and hematologic remissions in chronic myelogenous leukemia, a generalized disease, follow irradiation therapy localized to the spleen. 2,3 The white count will fall and the hemoglobin rises. It has also been apparent that the beneficial effects of irradiation persist for some time after the cessation of therapy. 4-5 In an attempt to understand this phenomenon, studies of the sternal bone marrow have been made in these patients following splenic irradiation. Early observers reported contradictory results. 5-9 In more recent work, a decrease in marrow granulocytic tissue 10 and a decrease in the number of mitotic figures in the marrow 11 were observed following splenic irradiation. All of these studies, however, have short-comings in that (1) reliance was placed upon study of bone marrow smears which do not portray accurately the structure of the marrow, 12,13 and (2) patients were not

A review of the literature on polycythemia vera reveals that only 10 cases have been described in the Negro race. If all of these cases were valid examples of polycythemia vera, the following patient would be the 11th case to be reported. Report of Case History.— A 48-year-old Negro woman was first seen in the Hematology Clinic of Colorado General Hospital on May 16, 1958. The patient complained of mild occipital headache, dizziness, and bleeding gums of two years' duration. Two years prior to admission she had bled excessively after tooth extraction. In August, 1957, she was hospitalized because of an acute swelling of the right leg, presumably a thrombophlebitis. At this time she was told that she had too much blood, and during the following few months a pint of blood was removed on two occasions. After this procedure, she received an unknown medication for several months. The only