SPLEEN. 351 



albuminate has been considered as a spleen constituent for a long time, 

 and especially also a protein substance which does not coagulate on boiling 

 and which is precipitated by acetic acid and yields an ash containing 

 much phosphoric acid and iron oxide. 1 



The pulp of the spleen, when fresh, has an alkaline reaction, but 

 quickly turns acid, due partly to the formation of free paralactic acid 

 and partly perhaps to glycerophosphoric acid. Besides these two acids 

 there are found in the spleen also volatile fatty acids, as formic, acetic, 

 and butyric acids, as well as succinic acid, neutral fats, cholesterin, traces 

 of leucine, inosite (in ox-spleen), scyllite, a body related to inosite (in the 

 spleen of plagiostoma) ; glycogen (in dog-spleen), uric acid, purine bases, 

 and jecorin. LEVENE found in the spleen a glucothionic acid, i.e., an 

 acid which is related to chondroitin-sulphuric acid but not identical 

 therewith, and which gives a beautiful violet coloration with orcin and 

 hydrochloric acid. The question whether this glucothionic acid originates 

 from the above-mentioned nucleoprotein or from the mucoid substance 

 has not been decided (LEVENE and MANDEL). In regard to the question 

 whether this acid is a unit body or not we refer to the work of MANDEL 

 and NEUBERG and LEVENE and JACOBS. 2 



Many enzymes are found in the spleen, and certain of these are of 

 special interest. To these belong the uric-acid-forming enzyme, the 

 xanthine oxidase (Bum AN), which occurs in the spleen of oxen and horses, 

 but not in man, dogs, and pigs (SCHITTENHELM), and which transforms 

 the oxypurines, hypoxanthine, and xanthine into uric acid; also the 

 hydrolytically active deamidizing enzymes guanase and adenase (LEVENE, 

 SCHITTENHELM, JONES and PARTRIDGE, JONES and WINTERNITZ), by the 

 first of which the guanine is transformed into xanthine, and by the latter 

 the adenine into hypoxanthine. The guanase also occurs in the spleen 

 of the ox and horse, but not (JONES), or only in small amounts (SCHITTEN- 

 HELM), in the pig-spleen. 3 The spleen also contains two enzymes, lienases, 

 as shown by HEDIN (and ROWLAND), one of which, the a-lienase, acts 

 chiefly in alkaline solution, while the other, /?-lienase, is active only in 

 acid reaction. These enzymes, which without doubt stand in close 

 relation to the leucocytes, not only act autolytically upon the pro- 

 teins of the spleen, but they also dissolve fibrin and coagulated blood- 

 serum. In. the autolysis of the spleen LEATHES found among the 

 cleavage products, proteoses, lysine, arginine, histidine, leucine, amino- 

 valeric acid, aspartic acid, and tryptophane. ScnuMM 4 found, in the 



1 See v. Gorup-Besanez, Lehrbuch, 4. Aufl., p. 717. 



2 Levene, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 37; Levene and Mandel, ibid., 45 and 47; 

 Mandel and Neuberg, Bioch. Zeitschr., 13; Levene, ibid., 16; Neuberg, ibid., 16. 



3 See chapter XV for the literature. 



4 Hedin and Rowland, Zeitschr. f . physiol. Chem., 32, and Hedin, Journ. of Physiol., 



