markdownabstract__Abstract__
In October 1845, John Hughes Bennett (1812-1875), a lecturer in clinical medicine and
pathologist at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh, reported on a peculiar case. The blood of
one of his patients had changed its color and consistency, as it was mixed with pus. When
he examined it microscopically, there were in fact huge numbers of corpuscles, which he
and many others were used to seeing in pus.' By applying acetic acid he could see the
nucleus: "The nucleus was generally composed of one large granule ... but here and
there two or three smaller granules" . Although he could find no source of inflammation,
he nevertheless concluded that his patient died from "the presence of purulent matter in
the blood". A few months later RudolfVirchow, a demonstrator in pathological anatomy
at the Charite Hospital in Berlin, made a similar observation, but he interpreted it differently.
He remembered that the normal blood contains colourless corpuscles quite similar
to those in pus and his patient's blood. The only difference was that the normal ratio
of red and white corpuscles seemed reverse in this instance. Therefore he named the condition
'leukaemia' (white blood).' Bennett preferred the more exact title of leucocythaemia,
or white cell blood.
In 1868 Ernst Neumann, professor of pathological anatomy at Konigsberg established
the link between blood and bone marrow and later stated that leukaemia is a disease
of the marrow
