CHAPTER IV. 



THE PREPARATION AND STUDY OF HEMOGLOBIN CRYSTALS 

 PREVIOUS TO THE INVESTIGATIONS OF PREYER. 



Crystals of hemoglobin were first discovered by Hunefeld (Die Chem- 

 ismus in der thierischen Organization, Leipzig, 1840, 160), who found, upon 

 exposing the blood of the earthworm between plates of glass, that there 

 were deposited bright red table-form crystals having sharp borders. He 

 also refers to crystals from the blood of man and of the pig. While Htine- 

 feld's article is the first on record, the real foundation of our knowledge 

 of hemoglobin was laid by the discovery of K. E. Reichert (Miiller's Archiv 

 f. Anat. u. Physiologie u. wissensch. Medicin, 1849, 198), during the summer 

 of 1847, of tetrahedral crystals of hemoglobin in the fetal membranes and 

 in the mucous membrane of the uterus of a guinea-pig which had suddenly 

 died, and which was examined 6 hours after death. The uterus contained 

 4 fetuses, and in all four placentas the crystals were found. The crystals 

 were regular tetrahedra of various sizes. The inclination of the planes 

 towards each other amounted to 70 31' 43", and that of the planes towards 

 the edge, 54 44' 8.5". He noted truncation in rare cases, which he thought 

 might be due to outside mechanical force. Reichert undoubtedly recog- 

 nized from the studies of the chemical reactions that these crystals were 

 albuminous. This contribution appears to have at once aroused interest 

 in the study of the blood crystals, as is indicated by the appearance of a 

 number of contributions during the next few years. 



Leydig (Zeit. f. wissensch. Zoologie, 1849, i, 116) found crystals of 

 the blood of Nephelis in the stomach of Clepsine. The corpuscles, he states, 

 became decolorized and disappeared, and in the plasma were found red 

 tabular leaflets and rods and columns, small and large, single and aggregate. 

 He also noted that if water entered the stomach the crystals dissolved. 



Kolliker (Zeit. f. wissensch. Zoologie, 1849, i, 266), in the records of his 

 histological studies of the blood corpuscles, describes red crystals in the blood 

 of the dog, river perch, and python, and states that the crystals were within 

 the corpuscles and also in the plasma of the blood of the spleen and liver. 



Crystals of human blood were observed by Budge (Sitz. d. Niederrh. 

 Gesellsch. f. Natur- u. Heilkunde, 12 Dec., 1850, and Koln. Zeitung, No. 300, 

 1850; quoted by Preyer, loc. cit.) in the stomach of leech. 



Shortly after this appeared the first article by Funke (Zeit. f. rat. 

 Medicin, 1851, N. F., 1, 185), which was almost immediately followed by 

 his second and third contributions (ibid., 1852, N. F., 2, 198, 288). To 

 Funke is due the credit of being the first to devise methods for preparing 

 blood crystals, which crystals had heretofore been obtained solely by 



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