594 ORGANS OF GENERATION. 



gives a solution similar to a mucin solution. Colloid is very closely 

 related to mucin and is considered by certain investigators as a modified 

 mucin. An ovarial colloid analyzed by PANZER contained 931 p. m. 

 water, 57 p. m. organic substance, and 12 p. m. ash. The elementary 

 composition was C 47.27, H 5.86, N 8.40, S 0.79, P 0.54, and ash 6.43 

 per cent. A colloid found by WURTZ 1 in the lungs contained C 48.09, 

 H 7.47, N 7.00, and O( + S) 37.44 per cent. Colloids of different origin 

 seem to be of varying composition. 



Metalbumin. This name ScHERER 2 gave to a protein substance 

 found by him in an ovarial fluid. The met albumin was considered by 

 SCHERER to be an albuminous body, but it belongs to the mucin group, 

 and it is for this reason called pseudomucin by HAMMARSTEN. S 



Pseudomucin. This body, which, like the mucins, gives a reducing 

 substance when boiled with acids, is a mucoid of the following com- 

 position: C 49.75, H 6.98, N 10.28, S 1.25, O 31.74 per cent (HAMMAR- 

 STEN). With water pseudomucin gives a slimy, ropy solution, and it is 

 this substance which gives the fluid contents of the ovarial cysts their 

 typical ropy property. Its solutions do not coagulate on boiling, but 

 only become milky or opalescent. Unlike mucin, pseudomucin solutions 

 are not precipitated by acetic acid. With alcohol they give a coarse 

 flocculent or thready precipitate which is soluble even after having been 

 kept under water or alcohol for a long time. 



Paralbumin is another substance discovered by SCHERER, which occurs 

 in ovarial liquids and also in ascitic fluids with the simultaneous presence 

 of ovarial cysts and rupture of the same. It is therefore only a mixture 

 of pseudomucin with variable amounts of protein, and the reactions of 

 paralbumin are correspondingly variable. 



MITJUKOFF 4 has isolated and investigated a colloid from an ovarial cyst. It 

 had the following composition: C 51.76, H 7.76, N 10.7, S 1.09, and O 28.69 per 

 cent, and differed from mucin and pseudomucin by reducing FEHLING'S solution 

 before boiling with acid. It must be remarked that pseudomucin, on boiling 

 sufficiently long with alkali, or by the use of a concentrated solution of caustic 

 alkali, also splits and causes a reduction. This reduction is nevertheless weak as 

 compared with that produced after boiling with an acid. The body isolated by 

 MITJUKOFF is called paramucin. 



The pseudomucin as well as colloid are mucoid substances, and the 

 carbohydrate obtained from them is glucosamine (chitosamine), as espe- 



1 Panzer, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 28; Wiirtz, see Lebert, Beitr. zur Kenntnis 

 des Gallertkrebses, Virchow's Arch., 4. 



2 Verb. d. physik.-med. Gesellsch. in Wiirzburg, 2, and Sitzungsber. der physik.- 

 med. Gesellsch. in Wiirzburg fur 1864-1865; Wiirzburg med. Zeitschr., 7, No. 6. 



3 Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 6. 



4 K. Mitjukoff, Arch. f. Gynakol., 49. 



