iQii] William J. Gies 293 



of accounting for all the observed biological phenomena, is admitted by 

 this author himself, and in seeking an explanation of various aberrant 

 phenomena he too considers the role of the tissue colloids. He refers, 

 as Pfeffer before him, to the part played by the imbibition water of 

 the cells (Quellungswasser), and at one point, correctly to my mind, 

 declares the swelHng of muscle in dilute acids to be identical with the 

 swelling of fibrin in dilute acids. But upon this colloidal absorption he 

 does not lay much weight, as is very evident in even his latest writings.^ 

 (Page 164.) 



It must be clearly understood that this questioning of the role of 

 osmotic pressure in biological material so far as water absorption is 

 concerned does not question its importance in the general problem of 

 the diffusion of dissolved substances. This is an entirely separate 

 problem. Only our colloidal conception of water absorption renders 

 possible the diffusion of dissolved substances into regions where on 

 the osmotic conceptions we know they could not get. As already 

 pointed out, neither do our considerations affect the general biological 

 significance of the law of partition as worked out by Hans Meyer and 

 E. Overton in their experimental studies on the cell Hpoids. (Page 165.) 



When a specific hemolysin or a poison capable of acting at a very 

 low concentration, is added to the blood, the hemoglobin escapes from 

 the corpuscle, but the corpuscle undergoes no change in size. With 

 few exceptions this is not the case in any of the other (hemolytic) Solu- 

 tions — in all of them the red blood corpuscles increase in size when 

 the proper concentration at which hemolysis occurs is reached. Espe- 

 cially marked is this in the Solutions of acids and alkalies in which 

 hemolysis occurs very rapidly, and in which swelling is most pro- 

 nounced (p. 166). I consider changes in the volume of the red blood 

 corpuscles and the loss of hemoglobin by the stroma separate processes, 

 which while they may often be associated, have really nothing to do 

 with each other (p. 168). The red blood corpuscle is essentially a 

 mixture of several colloids — protein (stroma), lecithin, cholesterol and 

 hemoglobin. . . . A class difference, however, exists between hemo- 

 globin and the other colloids that have been enumerated as contained 

 in the red blood corpuscle. Hemoglobin is not a hydrophilic but a- 

 hydrophobic colloid; it is not an emulsion colloid (emulsoid) as are the 

 protein constituents of the red blood corpuscle, or lecithin, but a Sus- 

 pension colloid (suspensoid) [p. 169] . The hemoglobin must be combined 



• See, for example, Overton's article in Nagel's Handbuch der Physiologie, 

 1907, ii, p. 744 to 896. 



