Volume 2

The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous.

  • Charles E. de M. Sajous
Date:
1903-1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The Internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    58/1138 (page 822)
    power of the blood appeared to have a definite relation to the number of red corpuscles. This suggests clearly a relationship between these bodies and respiration; indeed, Duclaux°'* has expressed the belief that oxydases are the diastases of respir- ation. On the whole, this evidence has been submitted to show (1) that an oxidizing substance occurs in the blood of all living or- ganisms, i.e., from plant to man; (2) that it is a respiratory function that it subserves in both hingdoms, not only in so far as the tissues themselves are concerned, but also in respect to the organs which serve for the absorption of oxygen from the sur- rounding media: the gills, shin, and lungs; (3) that in all or- ganic life, plants, invertebrates and vertebrates, this oxidizing substance absorbs oxygen, and liberates it, thus acting as an oxygen transmitter, i.e., as a catalyser. What is the relationship between this oxidizing substance or oxidase and hemoglobin ? THE OXIDIZING SUBSTANCE (OXIDASE) AS THE ALBUMINOUS CONSTITUENT OF H.5]M0GL0BIN. Haemoglobin, as we have seen, occurs only in the blood of animals already far advanced in the evolutional scale, to in- crease, according to zoologists, its capacity for oxygen. As red corpuscles appear in still higher organisms, i.e., only in verte- brates—a relatively small proportion of the animal kingdom— it seems evident that they, too, are tardy additions intended still further to increase the blood-plasma's efficiency as an oxy- gen carrier pari passu with the increasing needs of the higher animals. This is a necessary feature of their development, since, as shown by Claude Bernard, Magnus, Lothar Meyer, and Hoppe-Seyler, the blood holds in solution an amount of oxygen greatly in excess of that which could exist in a state of simple solution. The history of the red corpuscle thus suggests that it acts as a storage-cell for the oxidizing substance, oxidase or catalase, which, in the light of the foregoing evidence, is re- quired to account for tissue respiration. With which of the known constituents of the blood-plasma or of corpuscles do these oxidizing bodies correspond ? «*Duclaux: Loc. cit.