104 AMOUNT OF HAEMOGLOBIN IN BLOOD CORPUSCLES. [BOOK 1. 



B. Blood of man (in health). 



Iron. Hamoglobin. 



Minimum . . . 0'0508 grm. 12-09 grm. 

 Average of 11 cases . 0056 1345 



Maximum . . 0-063 15*07 



The variations which the amount of haemoglobin undergoes in disease will be 

 considered in a future chapter. 



By employing methods which will be subsequently 



Relation of described, it is possible to determine with comparative 

 haemoglobin ,. ,, , , . , 



to the number readiness not only the number ot corpuscles contained 



of the blood in a certain volume of blood, but also the amount of 

 corpuscles. haemoglobin, and the relation between the weight 

 of haemoglobin and the number of the blood corpuscles. Thus 

 Malassez found the number of red corpuscles in a cubic millimetre of 

 the blood of healthy men to vary between 4,000,000 and 4,600,000, 

 and the amount of haemoglobin between 0'125 and 0134 of a 

 milligramme 1 . Malassez has actually expressed the mean amount of 

 haemoglobin in each blood corpuscle of man in billionths of a 

 gramme (the billionth of a gramme he represents by the letters 

 yu-yLtgr.); his estimate is that each corpuscle contains on an average 

 30 



By /x cub. Malassez 2 designates the 1000th part of a cubic millimetre ; he 

 takes this as the unit of cubic capacity of the matter of red blood corpuscles, 

 and expresses the amount of haemoglobin in billionths of a gramme (/x/xgr.) 

 contained in one /x cub. of corpuscles of various animals, as is shewn below 



Volume of each corpuscle Haemoglobin contained 



according to Welcker. in one /* cub. of corpuscles. 



Man . . . 72 /x cub. 0'416/x/xgr. 



Dove . .125 0-416 



Lacerta agilis .201 0-348 



Rana fusca . . 629 0-343 



Proteus . . . 9200 0-115 



These numbers must, however, be received with the greatest caution, 

 and as being very crude approximations to the truth, as will be obvious 

 when we consider that the number of corpuscles found in the healthy blood 

 of man by Malassez differs very notably from that found by other equally 

 competent observers, whose methods were probably more accurate. 



Action of certain gases which displace the Oxygen of 

 Oxy-haemoglobin. 



Carbonic It had been observed by Claude Bernard that 



oxide, CO. fo Q blood of animals poisoned with carbonic oxide 



uniformly becomes of an intensely florid arterial hue, arid that this 

 differs from the normal colour of arterial blood by its persistence. 



1 L. Malassez, " Sur les di verses methodes de dosage de 1'hemoglobine et BUT un 

 nouveau colorimetre." Archives de Physiologie, 2 ser. vol. iv. 



8 Malassez, "Sur la richesse en hemoglobine des globules rouges du sang." 

 Gaz. med. de Paris, p. 534. 



