LUNGS AND THEIR EXPECTORATIONS. 821 



they also have the ability to decompose neutral fats, while, RIEHL 1 

 says, they do not have the ability to invert milk sugar. 



The blank or dark-brown pigment in the lungs of human beings and domestic 

 animals consists chiefly of carbon, which originates from the soot in the air. The 

 pigment may in part also consist of melanin. Besides carbon, other bodies, such 

 as iron oxide, silicic acid, and clay, may be deposited in the lungs, being inhaled 

 as dust. 



Among the bodies found in the lungs under pathological conditions 

 must be specially mentioned, proteoses (and peptones?) in pneumonia 

 and suppuration, glycogen, a slightly dextrorotatory carbohydrate 

 differing from glycogen, found by POUCHET in consumptives, and finally 

 also cellulose, which, according to FREUND, 2 occurs in the lungs, blood, 

 and pus of persons with tuberculosis. 



C. W. SCHMIDT found in 1000 grams of mineral bodies from the normal 

 human lung the following: NaCl 130, K 2 O 13, Na 2 O 195, CaO 19, MgO 

 19, Fe 2 O 3 32, P 2 O 5 485, SO 3 8, and sand 134 grams. According to 

 OiDTMANN, 3 the lungs of a 14-day old child contained 796.05 p. m. water, 

 198.19 p. m. organic bodies, and 5.76 p. m. inorganic bodies. 



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 

 products 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 4 ), 

 volatile fatty acids, glycogen, CH ARGOT'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 5 is not always constant. 



- N. Sieber, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 55; Riehl, Zeitschr. f. Biol., 48. 



2 Pouchet, Compt. rend., 96; Freund, cited from Maly's Jahresber, 16, 471. 



3 Schmidt, cited from v. Gorup-Besanez, Lehrbuch, 4. Aufl., 727; Oidtmann, ibid., 

 732. 



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



5 Gerhartz and Strigel, Beitr. z. kb'n. d. Tuberkulose, 10, which also cites Zickgraf. 



