372 PROTEIN- COMPOUNDS. 



the remarks " on the blood-corpuscles/' in the second volume) we 

 must arrive at the conclusion, that the globuloid is formed within a 

 cell or a vesicle or a closed saccule, which is bathed in an albumi- 

 nous fluid. If albumen lies without the enveloping membrane and 

 globulin exists within it, we are almost compelled to assume that the 

 globulin is produced by the cellular action from the albumen, but we 

 cannot give the chemical equation, representing how this transform- 

 ation takes place, for the simple reason that we are ignorant of the 

 rational composition both of albumen and globulin. From a com- 

 parison of the analyses of albumen and globulin, we can, however, 

 perceive that the latter contains a little less carbon and sulphur, but 

 rather more oxygen than the former. (Little weight can be attached 

 to the amount of phosphorus in albumen, in consequence of the un- 

 certainty connected with our modes of determining that element.) 

 Hence globulin appears to be albumen modified by oxidation, so 

 that it is allied to fibrin, or perhaps more correctly should be 

 placed between this substance and albumen. Moreover, the phy- 

 siological hypothesis, according to which the blood-corpuscles are 

 to be regarded as nothing more than laboratories in which the 

 ordinary nutrient matter, crude albumen, is first prepared, in order 

 to become applicable to the formation or reparation of tissues in 

 different organs, corresponds with this view. Whether globulin 

 be directly converted into fibrin, is a question which at present 

 is unanswerable ; we shall, however, return to this subject in a 

 future part of this work. 



Uses. The object of nature in depositing globulin in the 

 cellular fibres of the crystalline lens is too obvious to require 

 comment. It is, however, interesting to observe that nature, in 

 producing a refractive fluid, aimed at rendering the lens achromatic, 

 not merely by anatomical structure, but also by filling its middle 

 layers with a concentrated fluid which is always attenuated toward 

 the capsule. 



Chenevix is the first to whom we are indebted for this observar 

 tion ; he found that the specific gravity of a lens weighing 30 grains, 

 taken from the eye of the ox, was 1*0765, while, when he had peeled 

 off the outer layers, the nucleus, weighing 6 grains, had a specific 

 gravity of T194. 



But how nature, to carry out this object, effects the separation 

 or secretion of pure globulin, free from albumen and hsematin, in 

 the crystalline lens, from the minute capsular artery, will probably 

 never be understood. 



From the above observations it is manifest that we can never 



