634 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



the red corpuscles, particularly haemoglobin, have been proved 

 to form definite unstable compounds or physical aggregations 

 with chloroform ; and the position taken by the anaesthetic in 

 haemoglobin is not that of the respiratory oxygen, for the 

 oxygen-carrying power of this protein is in no way impaired 

 or interfered with by the presence of chloroform, though it 

 is quite certain that during narcosis with chloroform arterial 

 blood becomes progressively richer in reduced haemoglobin. 

 Evidence for the above statements was first given by Benjamin 

 Moore and Roaf,^ though numerous other observers, such as 

 Pohl, Waller, Wells, and Vernon Harcourt, among others, had 

 recognised with what tenacity chloroform is held by the blood 

 after anaesthetisation, and how difficult it was to recover the 

 drug; so that while the gases of the blood can be evacuated, 

 only '014 gramme out of "loS gramme of chloroform in the 

 blood can, as Waller demonstrated, be recovered.^ 



The effect of adding chloroform to blood in vitro was described 

 by Preyer in 1871.^ Formanek* more minutely investigated this 

 subject, and proved that when a solution of haemoglobin was 

 treated with chloroform and kept at a temperature of 5o°-53°C. 

 for some time, the protein was so completely precipitated that 

 the filtrate was free from haemoglobin. Edie's experiments 

 showed that precipitation occurred when the haemoglobin solu- 

 tion contained from i'S-7'S pei" cent, of chloroform.^ Even when 

 the amount of haemoglobin in solution varied and the percentages 

 of chloroform added also varied, the percentage of the anaesthetic 

 in the precipitate to the amount of haemoglobin which was not 

 precipitated remained constant, from which it may be inferred 

 that the precipitate formed is of the nature of a definite chemical 

 compound or, possibly, a definite physical aggregation. 



Experiments in vitro have also shown that when a solution of 

 haemoglobin is taken, and i per cent, of liquid chloroform added, 

 and the mixture shaken thoroughly, all the chloroform dissolves ; 

 no precipitate forms on standing either at the room or the body 

 temperature. It must, of course, be remembered that experi- 

 ments of this nature do not in any way imitate the conditions 



* Proc. Royal Soc, vol. Ixxiii. May 1904, and vol. Ixxvii. 1905. 



* Waller, Proc. Royal Sac, vol. Ixxiv. June 9, 1904. 

 ' Die Blutkrysialle, p. 104 : Jena, 1871. 



* Zeitschrift f. physiolog. Chevtie, vol. xxxi. 1900. 



^ Reports of Thompson Yates and Johnston Laboratories, Liverpool, vol. vi. 1905. 



