277 
Munn !) and Gamgee ?). The three first named studied the optical 
properties of cholehaematin, whereas Gamgee quite conelusively 
showed that the fresh bile of the ox or sheep does not contain 
the colouring matter, but a chromogen (or chromogens) which on 
contact with air gives rise to the eolouring matter. I am indebted 
to Prof. Dr. A. Gamgee F. KR. S. for calling my attention to this 
interesting body and also for the suggestion that phylloerythrine, 
a substance which I isolated ®) from the faeces of a cow fed on 
grass, might possibly be identical with cholehaematin. I may be 
permitted to quote a passage from the letter prof. Gamgee addressed 
to me on the 10° of March 1904. „I have always had the con- 
vietion that cholehaematin is not a derivative of haemoglobin but 
of chlorophyll and now, after your work on phylloerythrine I am 
more persuaded than ever. It, I am sure, is a product of animal 
metabolie processes acting on chlorophyll, whereas it is quite pos- 
sible that phylloerythrine and Schunck’s scatocyanin are products 
of the action of the digestive juices on chlorophyll. In the first 
place there is the fact that cholehaematin is only found in the bile 
of the herbivora and so far as I know only in the bile of the 
sheep and ox. The bile of the horse does not contain it, though 
I have never had the chance of examining the bile of horses fed 
entirely on grass. It would be strange if of the grass eating animals 
the ox and the sheep were the only creatures whose bile contained 
it. In the second place there is a very remarkable resemblance 
between the spectrum of cholehaematin and that of your new body“. 
„In the third place Mac Munn who gave the name cholehae- 
matin to the substance, because he believed it to be a derivative 
of haematin, found that the body when treated with sodium amal- 
gam yielded a substance with a spectrum very elosely resembling 
that of haematoporphyrin. In the light of your researches, it is 
infinitely probable that this was phylloporphyrin“. 
The great resemblance of the spestra of cholehaematin and 
phylloerythrine refered to, is indeed a striking one as will be seen 
from the following measurements: 
1) The spectroscope in Medicine. London 1880. 
?) Die physiologische Chemie der Verdaung ete. Lepzig 1897 p. 346. 
®) This Bull. 1903 p. 638. 
