THE OXIDIZING SUBSTANCE OF THE BLOOD-PLASMA. 143 



That the reaction through which the alloxuric bases are 

 converted into uric acid by oxygen occurs in the blood may 

 be further emphasized by Horbaczewski's experiments in an 

 unexpected manner unexpected in the same sense that his 

 experiments may be used to sustain one of his important 

 deductions and at the same time prove the presence of oxygen 

 in the body-fluids. When in the course of these experiments 

 the spleen-pulp and the blood were brought into contact at 

 the normal body-temperature in the presence of air, uric acid 

 was formed, while the same experiments performed after the 

 exclusion of air produced alloxuric bases. Horbaczewski cor- 

 rectly concluded from this that the relative quantity of allox- 

 uric bases formed as to that of uric acid depended upon the 

 extent of oxidation. In other words, the surplus of oxygen 

 which the presence of air afforded accounted for the formation 

 of uric acid. That this confirms the absolute need of air, 

 insisted upon by Abelous and Biarnes, and further sustains the 

 view advanced in the present work, that the suprarenal secre- 

 tion becomes oxidized in the lungs, is evident. We thus obtain 

 proofs from three different directions that the blood contains 

 an oxidizing principle, and that the alloxuric bases are converted 

 through this principle into uric acid. 



Brief reference must now be made to the nature of the 

 symptoms that occur as the result of intoxication from the 

 alloxuric bases. To state that the suprarenal glands respond 

 to the more or less great quantities of these toxics that appear 

 in the blood at various times during health, as the result of 

 undue nuclein ingestion, or during disease, as the result of 

 hyperleucocytosis, more or less marked tissue metamorphosis, 

 etc., is to confirm what the reader has doubtless already recog- 

 nized. Haig has often emphasized the high arterial tension 

 of what he thought to be "uric-acid" poisoning; it attends 

 migraine and the various milder disorders ascribed to the 

 "gouty diathesis/' If the postulate that "muscular vessels 

 and capillaries are antagonistic in dilation and contraction" is 

 recalled, we can readily account for this phenomenon, the 

 alloxuric bases, like any other poison, causing contraction of the 

 central vessels and dilation of the peripheral capillaries. The 

 marked pallor, cold and clammy extremities and skin wit- 



