PHYSIOLOGICAL OXIDATION PROCESSES. 871 



The sputum is a mixture of the mucous secretion of the respiratory 

 passages, of saliva and buccal mucus. Because of this its composition 

 is variable, especially under pathological conditions when various prod- 

 ucts mix with it. The chemical constituents are, besides the mineral 

 substances, chiefly mucin with a little proteid and nuclein substance. 

 Under pathological conditions proteoses and peptones (?), which are 

 probably produced by bacterial action or by autolysis (WANNER, SiMON 1 ), 

 volatile fatty acids, glycogen, CHARCOT'S crystals, and also crystals of 

 cholesterin, hsematoidin, tyrosine, fat and fatty acids, triple phosphates, 

 etc., have been found. 



The form constituents are, under physiological circumstances, epithe- 

 lium-cells of various kinds, leucocytes, sometimes also red blood-cor- 

 puscles and various kinds of fungi. In pathological conditions elastic 

 fibers, spiral formations consisting of a mucin-like substance, fibrin 

 coagulum, pus, pathogenic microbes of various kinds and the above- 

 mentioned crystals occur. 



The lung concretions contain chiefly calcium and phosphoric acid as inorganic 

 constituents. Silicic acid is, in ZICKGRAF'S opinion, an essential and constant 

 constituent, but according to GERHARTZ and STRIGEL 2 is not always constant. 



III. HOW ARE THE PHYSIOLOGICAL OXIDATION PROCESSES BROUGHT 



ABOUT? 



After the oxygen passes from the blood to the tissues a very extensive 

 oxidation is there carried out, which in conjunction with cleavage processes 

 yields finally the products carbon dioxide, water, urea and other bodies. 

 Little is known as to the manner in which the organism carries out such 

 complete oxidations. Attempts have been made for a long time to 

 explain the mechanism of the oxidation processes. Thus ScHONBEiN 3 

 believed in the presence in the organism of oxygen in a peculiar form, 

 suited for the oxidation. HoppE-SEYLER 4 connects the oxidation with a 

 simultaneous reduction; reducible or readily oxidizable substances first rup- 

 ture the oxygen molecule ( = 02) into atoms and take one up ; the other 

 at the moment it is set free is especially able to oxidize. M. TRAUBE 5 

 believes that in the case that a readily oxidizable (auto-oxidizable) substance 

 is present, the oxidation is produced by means of the entire oxygen 

 molecule, and indeed in the manner that water is transformed at the same 

 time to hydrogen peroxide, for example 



1 Wanner, Deutsch. Arch. f. klin. Med., 75; Simon, Arch. f. exp. Path. u. Pharm., 49. 



2 Gerhartz and Strigel, Beitr. z. klin. d. Tuberkulose, 10, which also cites Zickgraf. 

 'Baseler, Verh., Bd. 1, 339 (1853); Sitzungsber. Bayer. Akad. Wiss., 1863, Bd. 



1, 274. 



* Zeitschr f. physiol. Chem., 2, 1 (1878). 



5 Ber. d. d. chem. Gesellsch., Bd. 15 to 26 (1882 to 1893). 



