42 THE PROTEOMORPHIC THEORY AND THE NEW MEDICINE 



We have, then, in uric acid a compound relatively rich in 

 nitrogen and oxygen, but poor in hydrogen. To modify it by 

 adding a molecule of water would probably (in view of the 

 four atoms of oxygen) give it extreme instability; and to take 

 a molecule of water away from it would deplete its hydrogen 

 supply, which is already below the minimum amino-acid stand- 

 ard. Uric acid, therefore, appears to represent an end product 

 of the split protein molecule of such structure that it does not 

 afford available material for the making of amino-acids the only 

 form of nitrogenous building material that the system can utilize 

 in its synthetic operation. This applies, at any rate, to the por- 

 tion of uric acid which finally appears in the blood plasma. The 

 red blood corpuscle does, apparently, modify a part of the orig- 

 inal uric acid supply, since only a fraction of it appears in the 

 plasma. 



Similar reasoning applies, seemingly, to those other waste- 

 products of protein metabolism, urea (CH 4 N 2 O) and bilurubin 

 (C 16 H 18 N 2 O 3 ) ; each with an odd number of oxygen atoms; one 

 hopelessly deficient in carbon atoms, the other with an excess of 

 them. The origin of bilurubin as a product of the destruction 

 of red corpuscles in the liver has long been known; and as a 

 matter of course, it received consideration in the development of 

 one important aspect of the Proteomorphic theory. That the 

 observations linking uric acid with the red corpuscles were made 

 subsequently to the putting forth of the Proteomorphic theory, 

 and quite independently, gives them added value as corrobora- 

 tive of the truth of the theory itself. 



Meantime, as throwing light from another angle, we may recall 

 experiments made thirty years ago by Horbaczewski, which 

 showed that uric acid was formed during the digestion of spleen 

 pulp with blood in the presence of oxygen, but that in the absence 

 of blood only the purin bodies hypozanthin and zanthin were 

 formed ; the so-called zanthin oxydase requisite to complete the 

 transformation into uric acid being apparently lacking. It seems 

 a plausible inference that the corpuscles supply this oxydase, since 

 the presence of blood was the determining factor in bringing 

 about the final oxidation through which zanthin, C 5 H 4 N 4 O 2 , is 

 transformed into uric acid, C 5 H 4 N 4 O 3 . 



This observation, linked with the new revelations of Benedict, 

 above cited, makes plausible the further assumption that the red 

 corpuscles (found thus, apparently, to have an essential share 

 in the genesis of uric acid from purin bases, and demonstrated 

 as the chief locus of uric acid after it is formed), are the source 

 also of the uricase that transforms uric acid (by removal of a 

 molecule of the carbonyl group, CO, and the substitution of a 

 molecule of H 2 O) into allantoin, C 4 H N 4 O 3 ; and in due course 



