[ 118 ] 



XIX. Chemical Notices from Foreign Journals. 



By E. Atkinson, Ph.D. 



[Continued from vol. xii. p. 538.] 



IT is known from the researches of Magnus that arterial blood 

 absorbs about 10 times as much oxygen as does water. M. 

 Fernet*, with the idea tliat this greater absorption was not 

 owing entirely to the blood-globules (for many substances 

 having only a weak affinity for gases may impart to water the 

 property of absorbing them in a considerable degree), has made a 

 series of experiments on the solubility of gases in certain saline 

 solutions. He took successively solutions of different degrees of 

 concentration of the principal salts found in blood, and deter- 

 mined their coefficient of absorption for gases, by means of an appa- 

 ratus specially contrived by him for the purpose. For a description 

 of this the memoir itself must be consulted. His experiments 

 have as yet been confined to carbonic acid. A solution of chlo- 

 ride of sodium containing 15 percent, of the salt, diminishes the 

 solubility of carbonic acid by about one half. With phosphate 

 of soda the volume of gas absorbed increases in a very rapid 

 manner with the strength of the solution. All the numbers 

 hitherto obtained appear to show that the coefficient of absorp- 

 tion for carbonic acid in solution of phosphate of soda, is dedu- 

 cible from the coefficient of absorption in pure water, added to the 

 product of a constant coefficient multiplied by the strength of the 

 solution. 



From this it would appear that there is, besides the solution 

 of the gas in water, a true combination with the salt which com- 

 plicates the phsenomenon. This is also the case with carbonate 

 of soda, with the exception that the coefficient is a different 

 number. 



Schonfeldf has investigated the coefficient of absorption in 

 water for sulphurous acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and chlorine. 

 The determinations were made by the chemical method, and not 

 by the absorptiometer J. With sulphurous acid, an arrangement 

 was adopted by which the water could be saturated with the gas 

 at constant temperatures. A measured quantity of this waa 

 taken, and the quantity of gas absorbed determined by a solu- 

 tion of iodine in iodide of potassium. As by the great absorp- 

 tion of gas the volume of the solution is vei-y perceptibly altered, 

 this circumstance must be taken into account. The absorption 

 was determined between 0° and 40°. 



For chlorine the same arrangement for absorption was used; 



* Annales de Chimie et de Physique, August 1856. 



t Liebig's Annalen, July 1855. 



X Phil. Mag. vol. ix. pp. 116 and 181. 



