March 28, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



499 



N0DVLE8 AND MOLECULES OF BED BLOOD- 

 CORPUSCLES. 



Descriptions of human blood usually 

 give the general form and dimensions and 

 behavior of the red corpuscles, emphasiz- 

 ing the fact that mammalian blood in the 

 mature condition is negatively character- 

 ized by the absence of nuclei. They fail, 

 however, to note the presence of minute 

 nodules, like excessively minute nuclei, one 

 for each corpuscle as a general rule. These 

 bodies, which are not always central in the 

 corpuscle, appear under the microscope as 

 dark rings, each with a bright, yellowish 

 center. On first seeing them in coagulated 

 human blood, I was puzzled by their being 

 unexpected. Afterwards I found a row of 

 them visible in profile along the edge of a 

 layer of blood that had got bent up. In 

 this case they were like minute mamma;, 

 spherules protruding so as to show the 

 yellow hue without a dark border. They 

 soon came to be the best evidence of the 

 presence of blood, being seen under the 

 microscope at regular distances, as marking 

 the component corpuscles of the clot; and 

 they persist as the last recognizable parts 

 of disintegrating blood. 



Not being able to find any reference to 

 them in our own language, I was directed 

 by my colleague. Professor C. F. W. Mc- 

 Clure, to an article on them by A. Negri 

 in the Anatomischer Anzeiger of 1899, p. 

 33. That article referred to their discov- 

 ery and desci-iption by Petrone of Catania 

 in 1897 ; and reported an examination of 

 human and dog's blood, comparing the 

 nucleated condition of the red corpuscles 

 of the foetal blood with the non-nucleated 

 condition in the adult. And after describ- 

 ing the form, aspect and position in the 

 mature blood, of the bodies to which we 

 may assign the name ' blood-nodules, ' it 

 described and figured a small body at- 

 tached to the nucleus in the foetal T^lood ; 

 adding that this is the body which after 



decay of the nucleus itself in mammals per- 

 sists in the adult, and that it is not found 

 in non-mammals. 



After studying the account of Haemo- 

 globin, by Gamgee in the first volume of 

 Schaef er 's ' Text-book of Physiology, ' I at- 

 tempted to appl}^ the results of the chemic- 

 al work and the spectroscopic examination 

 by recent authors to the problem of the 

 molecular constitution of the blood corpus- 

 cle. According to Hiiffner and others the 

 hcemoglobin molecule is, chemically speak- 

 ing, very large, numbering 16,669 as its 

 molecular equivalent; and the explanation 

 of this largeness is that it carries one atom 

 of iron, which, being itself heavy, 56, re- 

 quires a large vehicle, just as a gunboat is 

 large because it is to carry a heavy cannon. 

 The final cause of this arrangement ap- 

 pears to be that the molecule of haemo- 

 globin may insorb a molecule of oxygen 

 gas, becoming specially associated with its 

 atom of iron, in the form of FeOj, receiv- 

 ing the charge of oxygen at the lungs, and 

 afterwards discharging it into the tissues. 

 This suggested the possibility of deter- 

 mining in an approximate way the abso- 

 lute size of the molecule of hsemoglobin. 

 I understand that this has not hitherto 

 been done for any proteid ; and the method 

 here employed is general, and may be used 

 wherever an organic substance combines in 

 definite proportions with a gas. 



Having measured the volume of the red 

 blood-corpuscle, and taking 31 per cent, as 

 its quantum of hcemoglobin, and 1.29 as 

 the specific gravity (estimated from the 

 whole corpuscle being about 1.09 sp. gr., 

 of which 69 per cent, is water), I made out 

 in milligrams the weiglit of the haemoglobin 

 for one corpuscle. Applying to this the 

 well-established constant that one milli- 

 gram of haemoglobin insorbs 1.334 cubic 

 millimeters of oxygen gas estimated at 

 0°C. and 760 mm. pi'essure, the product of 

 these gave the volume of oxygen gas in- 



