624 



NA TURE 



[October 24, 1S95 



questions relating to physiology' and pathologj-, xve come 

 to the first in the long series of valuable contributions 

 which Hoppe made to the physiological chemistrj- of the 

 blood. This short paper of only two pages was pubhshed 

 in 1857, after his return to Berlin, and consisted of a pre- 

 liminary communication on the action of carbonic oxide 

 on the blood.' In this paper he announced that carbonic 

 oxide so affects the colounng-matter (at that time desig- 

 nated Hamatoglobulin by Hoppe) as to render it incapable 

 of fulfilling the function, so important for the blood as 

 well as for the whole organism, of acting as the carrier 

 of o.xygen. Simultaneously and independently, Claude 

 Bernard = had observed the same facts as Hoppe, and 

 had shown, in addition, that when carbonic oxide acts upon 

 blood it is absorbed and displaces oxygen. .-Xlthough 

 his analytical data did not bear out the assertion, Claude 

 Bernard stated that for each volume of oxygen displaced 

 one volume of carbonic o.xide is absorbed, a relation 

 which was afterwards shown to be actually correct by the 

 fine investigation of Lothar Meyer.^ As will be after- 

 wards stated, it was, however, Hoppe-Seyler who, in 

 1S65, after Stokes' beautiful researches on the reduction 

 of oxy-ha.moglobin, furnished the complete explanation 

 of the way in which carbonic oxide exerts its action on 

 the blood and its colouring-matter, and placed in the 

 hands of the medical jurist a method of distinguishing 

 between blood which has been rendered florid by carbonic 

 oxide and blood which owes its red arterial colour to 

 o.xygen. 



The year 1857 witnessed also the publication of the 

 first ■* of a series of researches on the property which 

 many of the proximate principles of the body possess of 

 rotating the plane of polarisation. Biot had discovered 

 that albumin rotates the plane of polarisation to the left, 

 and Bouchardal and .\. Becquercl had endeavoured, but 

 without success, to base upon this discovery a method for 

 the quantitative estimation of albumin. In his first paper 

 Hoppe showed (i) that, as was to be predicted, the 

 rotation produced by a solution of albumin was strictly 

 proportional to the amount of albumin in solution, and to 

 the thickness of the stratum traversed by the light ; (2) 

 that albumin existing in a state of solution in a liquid 

 rotates the plane of polarisation of light almost exactly as 

 much to the left as an equal percentage of grape sugar 

 rotates it to the right. In the same year (1857) and the 

 year following, Hoppe published other papers on the 

 rotator)' properties of other organic proximate principles 

 of the animal body.* 



With his hands full of original work, with the chemical 

 laboratory of the Pathological Institute to direct, busily 

 helping the students who were attracted to work under a 

 teacher full of enthusiasm and ability, Hoppe yet found 

 time to publish, in 1858, the first edition of his " Hand- 

 book of Physiologico-Chemical and I'athologico- 

 Chemical .Analysis." " The only work at that time in 

 existence which fulfilled the same object was the very 

 useful work of Oorup-Iiesanez, of which the first edition 

 appeared in 1850, the second in 1854," and the third and 

 last in 1871. Hoppe-Seyler's book was written on lines 



1 H 

 glol 

 I c 



■•' ■ -'■■■ K •htenoxydg.i^cs auf dai^ H.^mato* 



. Irclih; vol. xi. (1857) P ^88. 

 - . des Nubittancc!* toxiquett cl 



ine oxydo carU'nijt inrecto," Di$]u:rt. In- 

 .8s8. 



■ ' V ■" ■j'-hallM im Urin, Blut- 

 hen PolarUation»-Ap* 



' I • \ -■■:■ nid G.->ncn 

 I luinungdvs 

 PoIaris.-i. 

 , . y ;■' ' " I Ucljcr die 

 ' II uiid ihrc /crwtzung-,* 

 141. 

 Ill >it. M'hiirh [ lonK treasured 

 , the title of the rint edition 

 . Analyse." 

 \rH' iniiiK' 'III 'ju.-ilitaiiven und quanlitativcn 

 (NOrnb«rK, VcrlAfE v. U SchrA);, 1854.) 



,y-, vol.. 52] 



essentially the same, but was distinguished by containing 

 many new methods, the results of the original researches 

 of its author : as, for example, on the rotatory properties 

 of various origanic bodies, on the polarimctric estimation 

 of albumin and milk-sugar, on the colorimetric estim- 

 ation of the blood-colouring matter, on new methods of 

 blood analysis, iS:c. Personally, the writer is greatly 

 indebted to the first and the subsequent editions of 

 Hoppe-Seyler's work, and in saying that it has e.xerted a 

 powerful and useful influence in difl'using a knowledge of 

 the best methods of pr.ictical work throughout the 

 laboratories where researches in physiological chemistry 

 are pursued, he is only expressing an opinion which 

 he believes to be shared by all who arc best 

 qualified to judge. In spite of a decided narrowness, 

 amounting at times to unfairness, which asserts itself in 

 nearly all Hoppe-Seyler's writings, and which caused him 

 to attach undue importance to his own work and that of 

 his own pupils, and which explains some unfortunate 

 omissions and deficiencies, the " Handbook " remains the 

 recognised practical work consulted by the student of 

 physiological chemistry. The sixth, and last, edition of 

 the book,' edited jointly by Hoppe-Seyler and his pupil 

 Ur. Thierfelder, appeared early in 1893. 



Hoppe-Seyler's Work-in Tiibingen^ 1861-72. 



With his appointment as ordinary Professor of .\pplied 

 Chemistry in the University of Tiibingen conimenced 

 the most prolific period of Hoppe-.Seyler's scientific life, 

 during which he contributed to science his researches 

 on hivmoglobin and its derivatives — researches which, 

 with the work of .Stokes, Claude Bernard, Pfliiger, 

 Ludwig and his school, have furnished us with the 

 greater part of the knowledge which we at present 

 possess concerning the chemistry of the blood-colouring 

 matter and the part which it plays in res])iration. .\t 

 Tubingen, Hoppe, then in the very prime of life, sur- 

 rounded by pupils, amongst whom were Diakonow, 

 Uybkowsky, Sliescher, Parke, and .Salkowski, showed 

 much more clearly than was possible in the position 

 which he occupied in Berlin, his capacity to be the head 

 of a school — that is, his power of inducing men to work 

 out his own ideas, and of animating them with the desire 

 to advance science by their own researches. 



It was in 1862 that appeared Hoppe's short but epoch- 

 marking ])apcr " On the behaviour of the blood-colouring 

 matter in the spectrum of sunlight.'- Thmugh the re- 

 searches of Brewster and Herschel, the fad that absorp- 

 tion bands occurred in the spectrum of light which had 

 been passed through certain coloured gases, vapours, and 

 diluted coloured solutions had become known, and the 

 absorption spectra of indigo and chlorophyll had been 

 described. The discovery of (he wonderfully character- 

 istic absorption spectrum of blood at once enabled Hoppe 

 to assert that ha-matin, which had up to that time been 

 by many considered the true blood-colouring matter, did 

 not exist preformed in the blood corpuscles, but that it 

 is a product of decomposition of the true blood-colouring 

 matter which is the c.iuse of the absorption bands which 

 he had discovered, and which, under the influence of heal, 

 acids, &c., splits up into haniatin and an albuminous sub- 

 stance. Without doubt, added Hoppe, the true blood- 

 colouring matter is the body which forms the blood 

 crystals of Funcke, and these crystals are not, as Lehm.inn 

 had erroneously supposed, composed of a colourless albu- 

 minous /iiciiiiitotrvslitlliiir stained with hainatin. 



There can be no i|ucstion that Hoppe at once ap- 

 preciated the inmicnse value of the information which 



' " Handliiirli tier l*Ity>iol(»t;iscli- und FntlioIogisch-ChcniiMihcn Ana1y!>0 

 nir Aer/lc und Sludircndc," von Felix Hopi»e-.Seyler. Scch>tc Auflnge 



id H. 

 irschwald, 



neu be.irbcitcl von !■". Hoppc.Scylcr, Professor in Slrassliure, 

 Thierfelder, I'rivatdocenl in Uerlin. (Herlin, Vcrl,iK von Aug. H 

 ■893-) 



- Prof. Felix Hoppe in TObingen, " Uelicr d.-i5 Vcrhallen des HlutOirb- 

 stofrc^im Spectrum dcs .Sonncnlichtes," \'irchow*s Aixhiv, vol. xxiii. (i893)i 

 pp. 446-440. 



