384 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



inflexible mass wherein the blood would not be disturbed by the undulations of the 

 body during the towing of the whale to the factory ship, and because it is far distant 

 from both the air blown subcutaneously into the belly region and the fermenting ali- 

 mentary tract. When the blubber is stripped off the head the blood spurts from these 

 small arteries. In order to collect the blood without exposure to the air, a small glass 

 cannula was inserted into an artery and connected to a large test-tube which contained 

 paraffin oil. The cannula and connecting tubing were filled with oil. The blood then 

 ran through the cannula into the test-tube under the oil until the oil reached the top of 

 the tube. A cork was then inserted, displacing some of the oil and sealing the tube, 

 which was then taken below to the laboratory. Foetal blood was collected by cutting 

 open the thorax and heart in one motion and rapidly submerging a tube in the blood 

 which welled up freely. The cork was inserted under the blood as in collecting urine. 

 On occasions when the blood could not be taken below immediately the tube was im- 

 mersed in ice cold water. 



The technique of gas analysis. In this series of estimations of the blood gases 

 special attention was paid to the conditions of oxygen and nitrogen. Less attention was 

 given to the carbon dioxide values of fresh blood, for it was found that plain evacuation 

 of a sample of blood did not extract carbon dioxide completely although all the nitrogen 

 and oxygen were extracted. Since the main object was to assess the dissolved nitrogen, 

 no lactic acid was used to expel the carbon dioxide, as the addition of acid might have 

 caused slight flocculation of the protein constituents of the blood to the occlusion of 

 some of the nitrogen. The extraction of oxygen and nitrogen was carried out without 

 reagents. At first gas-free water was used as a diluent to hasten evacuation, but, after 

 some control experiments had shown that extraction of nitrogen was as rapid without 

 the water, the diluent was abandoned to simplify the manipulation. The procedure was 

 to evacuate the blood with frequent shaking for 10 min., isolate the blood in the lower 

 half of the burette, and absorb carbon dioxide and oxygen with the usual reagents. 



Nitrogen and oxygen in fresh whale blood. The nitrogen and oxygen content of 

 samples of blood are shown in Table III. It was impossible to obtain accurate data as 

 to the time that had elapsed from the death of the whale to the drawing of the sample, 

 but in no case had the whale been dead more than 12 hours and the majority less than 6. 

 The only exception is sample no. 99, which was deliberately taken from a decomposing 

 whale. The table shows the resuks of all the analyses which were performed. The sig- 

 nificance of the nitrogen and oxygen contents will be discussed later ; for the moment 

 it will be enough to point out that only six samples (nos. 27, 49, 68, 69, 74, 99) show 

 supersaturation to correspond to a pressure of between 2 and 3 atmospheres, while only 

 one of the six (no. 69) indicates a pressure of more than 4 atmospheres in the air 

 nitrogen in the lungs. Thus supersaturation in blood, a viscous colloidal fluid, is more 

 rare than in urine and allantoic fluid. 



It will also be seen in Table III that the majority of the blood nitrogen volumes are 

 less than the normal solubility of atmospheric nitrogen in blood at barometric pressure. 

 The average content for the whole series, including the supersaturated samples men- 



