306 COLLOIDS IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



dehydrate (shrink) the stroma without causing coagulation of the 

 hemoglobin hemolyze red blood cells. In fact, concentrated sodium 

 chlorid solution causes hemolysis. The blood coloring matter is 

 pressed out just as in the case of the salts 1 of heavy metals mentioned 

 later. By carefully cutting, crushing or warming, the blood corpus- 

 cles do not lose their coloring matter, provided sufficient time is 

 allowed for the lipoid membrane to close before the coloring matter 

 diffuses out. If the lipoid membrane be destroyed by warming or 

 solvents (ether, saponin, etc.), hemolysis occurs. The salts of the 

 heavy metals which coagulate albumin harden red blood corpuscles 

 also, and if red blood corpuscles are placed in such weak solutions of 

 heavy metals that no coagulation of the dissolved albumin occurs, 

 there are two possibilities: the salt of the heavy metal causes no 

 shrinking of the stroma (e.g., CuCl 2 ) and the blood corpuscles are left 

 unchanged; or the heavy metal causes shrinking of the stroma (e.g., 

 HgClo and many others) so that hemolysis occurs, for the blood color- 

 ing is pressed out as water is from a sponge. 2 The spongy frame- 

 work with its largest outgrowths reaches to the surface of the blood 

 corpuscles, so that there is at the surface if there is no stress a mosaic of 

 lipoids and albumins which can assume, in hypertonic neutral salt solu- 



1 With a few special exceptions, it is entirely immaterial to our point of view 

 whether we regard behavior towards hypotonic and hypertonic solutions as the 

 result of osmotic pressure or as the result of swelling and shrinkage of the corpus- 

 cular colloids. 



MARTIN H. FISCHER * has developed an entirely revolutionary conception of 

 the constitution of the red blood corpuscles and the phenomenon of hemolysis. 

 He starts out with the idea that hemolysis may occur as two phenomena: (a) 

 with swelling of the blood corpuscles (in water, acids, alkalis, etc.); (6) with- 

 out swelling (alcohol, saponin, hemolysins, etc.). On this account M. H. FISCHER 

 regards the increase of volume and the exit of the hemoglobin as two phenomena 

 which frequently run parallel and yet have nothing to do with each other. He 

 assumes that the proteins (not the hemoglobin) swell under the influence of 

 water, acids, alkalis and hypotonic salt solution. The hemoglobin, however, 

 which he considers to be an hydrophobe colloid, he regards as being adsorbed by 

 the remaining protein constituents of the blood corpuscles. To demonstrate 

 his conception M. H. FISCHER stained fibrin with carmine and observed a loss of 

 color with acids, alkalis, hypotonic salt solutions, urea, etc., just as in the case 

 of hemolysis. In this way M. H. FISCHER injects a new point of view into the 

 discussion, since he replaces the influence of osmotic pressure by the force of 

 swelling and the salts by the colloids, yet many of his points seem untenable to 

 me. If we consider that a blood corpuscle contains almost five times as much 

 hemoglobin as other proteins, we must cease talking of an adsorption of the 

 hemoglobin by the albumin; adsorption is a reversible process, a term applicable 

 to only very few hemolytic phenomena. I cannot subscribe to the view, that 

 hemoglobin is an hydrophobe (suspension colloid). This, however, is not vital 

 to the main question. 



2 From experiments still unpublished. 



