466 CHEMISTRY OF THE PROTEIDS CHAP. 



Haemoglobin 



The terms * Haemoglobulin ' or haemoglobin were first used by 

 Hoppe-Seyler l for the red colouring matter which occurs in the 

 red blood -corpuscles of vertebrates, and, in a free state, in the 

 blood of many invertebrates. It is also found in the muscles of ver- 

 tebrates (Kiihne 2 ) and invertebrates (Ray Lankester 3 ), the amount 

 varying with individual muscles, the age of the animal, and the 

 capacity required for storing oxygen. The muscles of the seal, 

 porpoise, and dolphin are of a specially deep-red colour (the author). 

 Hunefeld 4 and Rollet 5 prepared from the earthworm Lumbricus and 

 from the insect Chironomus crystals resembling those obtained from 

 mammalian blood, and Ray Lankester 6 and Nawrocki 7 showed, 

 independently from one another, that these crystals were composed of 

 haemoglobin. The distribution throughout the animal kingdom has 

 been thoroughly investigated by Ray Lankester : in addition to the 

 typical circulatory system of vertebrates, haemoglobin occurs in the 

 perivisceral fluid of certain worms (Glycera, Capitilla, Phoronis) ; in 

 the lamellibranchs Solen and Area, and in the leeches Nephelis and 

 Hirudo ; in the Turbellarian Polia sanguirubra in the dipterous 

 insect Chironomus, and in the common fly Musca domestica (MacMunn 8 ). 

 In some animals, such as Aphrodita aculeata the haemoglobin is 

 specially abundant in the nervous ganglionic chain (Ray Lankester) 

 arid Hubrecht 9 has shown that in some of the Nemertian worms the 

 haemoglobin is restricted to the cerebral ganglia, being found in no 

 other tissue. 



In some animals MacMunn has observed a dissociation-product of 

 haemoglobin, namely, haematoporphyrin. 



The analogous haemocyanin, a proteid in which the iron of haemo- 

 globin is replaced by copper, and which also subserves respiratory 

 purposes, is met with amongst the cephalopods and the crayfish. 

 A list of animals containing haemocyanin has been published by 

 Halliburton. 10 Haemocyanin is discussed on p. 529. 



1 Hoppe-Seyler, Virchow's Archiv, 29. 223 (1864). 



2 Kiihne, ibid. 33. 79 (1865). 



3 Ray Lankester, Proc. Roy. Soc. London, 21. 70, 1872. 



4 Hunefeld, Journ. f. prakt. Chem. 16. 152(1839). 



5 Rollet, Sitzb. d. R. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien. 44. 615 (1861). 



6 Ray Lankester, Journ. of Anat. and Physiol. 1867, p. 114. 



7 Nawrocki, Centralbl.f. d. med. Wiss. 1867, p. 196. 



8 MacMunn, Proc. Birmingham Phil. Soc. 3. 130. 



9 Hubrecht, Niederl. Arch. f. Zool. 1876 ; abstracted in Jahresb. ii. d. Fortschritte 

 d. Tierchemie, 6. 92. 



10 W. D. Halliburton, Journ. of Physiol. 6. 300 (1885). 



