Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1843-4 / [Sir James Paget].

  • James Paget
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1843-4 / [Sir James Paget]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    but he has found that well-prepared haematine may be digested in diluted hydrochlo¬ ric or sulphuric acid for several days without the iron in it being in the least di¬ minished. After being so treated he has obtained, after incineration, the regular proportion of 9 49 per cent, of oxyde.* If strong sulphuric acid be poured on dried blood, or dried pure haematine, and kept on it for some days, and then water be added, hydrogen is evolved, and sulphate of peroxyde of iron is found in the solution, which could not happen if the iron had been at first in the form of per¬ oxyde.f o. I he iion may thus be all extracted from the blood, or from haematine, (though not,, as some say, without affecting the colour,) and the other constituents may be obtained in a separate form Numerous analyses of this constituent, by Van Goudoever, regularly yielded the same equivalents of the elements, viz , C. 44, H. 44, N. b, O. 6 j but if the iron had been united with this in the form of Fe. 2, O. 3, and in the proportion of one equivalent to two, there should have re¬ mained only four and a half equivalents of oxygen. Mulder concludes, therefore, that iron is present in lnematine, as iodine is in sponge, or sulphur in cystine, or arsenic in cacodyl. His notion of the mode in which the changes of colour are effected is, that when the corpuscles of the ve¬ nous blood are exposed in the lungs, oxy-proteine is formed by the oxydation of the fibrine proteine of the liquor sanguinis, or, perhaps, bv the oxvdation of the outer layer of the cell membrane of the corpuscles. If formed in the liquor sanguinis, its peculiar plasticity would lead to its being deposited in a thin layer on the cor¬ puscles. In either such case, the dark corpuscles would, after respiration, be in¬ vested by a thin layer of white and imperfectly transparent oxy-proteine or buffy coat, through which they would look bright red, as dark blood does when contained in a vessel ol milk-white glass. But, in the systemic capillaries, the oxy-proteine maybe consumed in nutrition, and the darkness of the corpuscles will then again appear unveiled. 6 Moreover, since it appears that, in the biconcave form, the corpuscles bv re¬ flecting moie light, are always bright, and in the biconvex form always dark, it may be that in the aiteiial blood they are not only buffed, but also cupped, by theoxy- proteine, [by the plastic properties of which, moreover, it is easy, on this pretty theory, to explain the ready adhesion of the corpuscles in inflammatory blood j 1 fluted acids, which make bright blood dark, may do so by making the outer layer of the corpuscles transparent, as they do fibrine before dissolving it • and concentrated solutions of neutral salts may make it bright bv making the’same layer contract. ' “ ® Chemical composition. M. FiguierJ has suggested an easy method for the rough analysis of the blood. By adding to one volume of defibrinated blood, two volumes of a solution of sulphate of soda, of sp gr. marking 16° to 18° in Baume’s areometer, the corpuscles will separate (as Berzelius showed), and may, with hardly an exception, be all collected on a filter. Thus their quantity mav be estimated, as that of the fibrine may [very roughly] by what is obtained by whipping. The quantity of albumen may be estimated by boiling the serum; and the water by evaporating a separate portion of blood. ’ Ashes. EnderlinS has carefully analysed, in Liebig’s laboratory, the ashes of . * Liebig adduces the possibility of extracting iron from dried blood as one of the proofs of its being in an oxydized state; but Mulder says this iron must have been extracted from some other constituent of the blood ; for others, besides the globules, even pure serum, contain iron. t When the blood or its colouring matter has been exposed to the air or prepared in it, the iron must always, according to Liebig’s view, be in the state in which he supposes it to be in arterial blood. t Report of the Acad&nie des Sciences du 8 Juillet 1844; and, in full, in the Ann. de Chimie et de Physique, Aout, 1844. § Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, Marz und April, 1844. The same paper contains analyses oft le blood-ashes of the calf, ox, sheep, and hare, confirming the above conclusions, and numerous miscellaneous observations on the chemical characters of the proteine-compounds. Other analyses from these papers are reported under the head of Saliva and Fieces. They contain also an analysis of the ashes of ox-flesh, which the author finds identical (in quality) with those of blood, confirming t leie jy t ie analyses of Playfair and Bockrnann, who found a similar and even closer identity of com¬ position between the complete blood and flesh.