The metabolism of the blood itself 



127 



It is therefore necessary to control many researches by testing 

 for self-reduction in the blood. With this warning let me pass to a 

 wholly different subject for which this property of young corpuscles 

 has been used as a test. 



Armed with the discovery that freshly formed red cells have an 

 appreciable metabolism, Morawitz and Masing (5) sought to solve a 

 problem which has been something of a stumbling-block to physio- 

 logists, namely whether or no there is an increased formation of red 

 blood corpuscles at high altitudes. 



When they attacked the problem it was capable of statement as 

 follows : It was known that life at increased altitude caused an 

 increase in the number of red blood corpuscles per cubic millimetre 



100 



FIG. 70. Shows the degree of anaemia and the degree of self-reduction of the blood in 

 each of eight rats which had sarcomatous tumours. o= Percentage saturation of 

 blood after incubation. = Haemoglobin value (100 corresponds to '185 c.c. oxygen 

 per c.c. of blood). The figures along the abscissa denote the rats. 



of blood taken from the finger or ear. This increase was accounted 

 for in three different ways by different authors. 



(1) That there was an actual increase in the formation of red 

 corpuscles. 



(2) That there was a diminution in the plasma leading to a 

 greater concentration of the corpuscles. 



(3) That the corpuscles became unevenly distributed, being in- 

 creased relatively to the plasma in the peripheral blood and decreased 

 relatively to the fluid elements of the blood in the viscera. 



It is not easy to arrive at a judgment as to whether or no there 

 is an increased formation of haemoglobin in man. The most obvious 

 path along which to seek a solution is that of measuring the total 

 blood volume by the carbon monoxide method, either as described 

 by Haldane (6) or by Plesch (7) . Indeed measurements of this sort have 



