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JAMA. 1970;211(10):1692.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Alcoholism may be the trigger mechanism of a chain reaction resulting in many and varied syndromes. The alcoholic with neurologic disease, malnutrition, or cirrhosis is a patient familiar to the house officers of any large city hospital. That this patient may also manifest hematologic signs has become increasingly evident during the past decade.

The depressant effect of alcohol on erythropoiesis is often associated with folic acid deficiency and resultant megaloblastosis,¹ and occasionally pancytopenia. A recent study suggests that alcoholism is also associated with a defect in cellular iron utilization manifested by a high incidence of ringed sideroblasts in the marrow.² These changes have been described in patients who have low serum and red cell folate levels along with megaloblastosis.

Recently evidence has begun to accrue that alcohol may induce thrombocytopenia quite apart from its effects on other formed elements of the blood and without relationship to folic acid deficiency. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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