vi PSEUDO-ACIDS PSEUDO-BASES 219 



acids in the sense of Hantzsch, to convey the idea that albumins in 

 watery solutions are non-electrolytes, while in acid solutions they act 

 as bases and in basic solutions as acids. Cohnheim now says : " Since 

 Bredig and Winkelblech have shown that glycocoll and other simple 

 amino-acids behave in exactly the same way, the hypothesis of Cohn- 

 heim and Krieger has become superfluous, and the riddle as to how 

 albumins act has been solved by studying the behaviour of its 

 constituent radicals." 



The author is at a loss to understand this passage. In his 

 Physiological Histology in 1902 he has made no difference between 

 amino-acids and albumins, for he recognised them to be homologous 

 compounds. To say the theory of albumins being pseudo-acids or 

 pseudo-bases has become superfluous, because the simple amino-acids 

 behave as do albumins, is not right. The correct and only con- 

 clusion to be drawn is that both albumins and amino-acids have a 

 great tendency to be converted normally into pseudo- compounds. 

 The author believes it very important to always remember that the 

 waste in our body would be enormous if it were not for the ring- 

 formation which amino-acids undergo when they assume the pseudo- 

 acid pseudo-basic state. He has held for years l " that so-called pure 

 ash-free albumins (proteids) are chemically inert, and, in the true sense 

 of the word, dead bodies." " What puts life into them is the presence 

 of electrolytes, either unorganised or organised." " Thus tissues fixed 

 in (neutral) absolute alcohol are potential acids and bases, or, as it is 

 termed, are in the state of pseudo-acids and pseudo-bases, and are 

 converted into real acids by the addition of bases, and into real bases 

 by the addition of acids." 



Let us therefore continue using Hantzsch's expressions 'pseudo- 

 acid ' or * pseudo-base ' to designate that ring-formation in amphoteric 

 electrolytes by which chemically active compounds are converted into 

 chemically inactive ones. 



Pseudo -acids and pseudo -bases are only a special case of the 

 amphoteric electrolytes discussed on p. 208, as shown by the inves- 

 tigations of Hantzsch into the nature of the alcoholic solutions of 

 metallic hydrates, as in this class of amphoteric electrolytes a change 

 in the ionic state goes hand in hand with a change in constitution. 

 Zawidzki 2 also points out that amphoteric electrolytes, pseudo-acids, 

 and pseudo-bases have this in common, that the intra-molecular change 

 during the formation of ions may vary greatly in individual cases, 

 but that in strong electrolytes it cannot occur by the addition, or the 



1 Mann, Physiological Histology, 1902, pp. 2, 25, 224, 338, 345, 348. 

 2 Zawidzki, Ber. d. deutsch. chem. Ges. 37. 153 (1904). 



