( 718 ) 
Phy iology. — “The permeability of blood-corpuscles to calcium.” 
By Prof. H. J. HAMBURGER. 
(Communicated in the meeting of October 31, 1908). 
It is beyond doubt at present that red blood corpuscles are 
permeable to anions. This was first established for chlorine by 
quantitative chemical determinations‘), and also with respect to other 
anions no reasonable doubts exist as to their power of permeating 
the blood corpuscles’), This is not the case with metal ions or 
kations. It is generally believed that blood corpuscles are absolutely 
impenetrable to these. This opinion seems to be founded on an ex- 
periment by Gtrper*). This investigator led carbonic acid through a 
suspension of red blood corpuscies in a NaCl solution, and found 
that chlorine penetrated into the blood corpuscles, but that the amount 
of potassium and sodium in blood corpuscles and liquid remained 
the same. The blood corpuscles thus would seem to be impenetrable 
to both these kations, and this supposition has the sooner found 
belief as in normal conditions the potassium is found chiefly in the 
blood corpuscles, the sodium in the serum. Tacitly the impenetrability 
of erythrocytes to Na and K seems to have been extended to the 
other kations and various authors have even quite recently expressed 
themselves to this effect *). 
Investigations, however, carried on jointly with HekMA, concerning 
the influence of various substances, and especially of small quaatities 
of Ca on phagocytosis have shaken my belief in the truth of this 
view. The fact that phagocytosis and, as I afterwards discovered, 
chemotaxis as well are greatly increased by traces of Ca suggests the 
question whether Ca does not enter into the wnite blood corpuscles.’) 
The striet proof of this could only be given by quantitative chemical 
determinations. But the difficulty is that white blood corpuscles are 
hard to obtain in great quantities. This does not apply to red blood 
1) HAmpurcer. De permeabiliteit der roade bloedlichaampjes in verband met de 
isotonische coefficiénten. Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Science. Series II, 
Vol. VII, 1889. — Over den mvloed der ademhaling op de permeabiliteit der 
bloedlichaampjes. Ibid. Vol. IX, 1891. — Zeitschr. f. Biologie 26 1889 S. 414; 
1892 8. 405. 
2) Hampurerr. Report of the meeting of the Royal Academy of Science. Oct. 27, 
1900. Hampurcer und van Lier. Archiv f. (Anat. u.) Physiol. 1902 S. 492. 
3) Gürser. Sitzungsber. d. med. physik. Gesellsch. zu Würzburg 25 Febr. 1595. 
4) Cf e.g. Héper in the Handbook of von Koranyr and Ricarer, 1907. p.p. 287 
and 288. 
>) Hamburger and Hexma, Proceedings of the Royal Ac. of Science. June 29, 1907, 
