258 



Dr. W. D. Halliburton. 



3. The Albumin resembles serum albumin in its properties. It 

 coagulates at 73° 0. It is present in very small quantities. It may- 

 be provisionally termed cell albumin. 



In concluding this account of the proteids of lymph cells, I may 

 add that no substance like myosin or fibrin can be obtained from the 

 cells ; there is, however, a formation of sarkolactic acid after death as 

 in muscle ; and if the glands be left, especially at the temperature of 

 the body, for some hours after death, a process of self-digestion takes 

 place, the pepsin present in the glands as it is in most tissues (Briicke) 

 becoming active when the reaction of the tissue becomes acid ; under 

 these circumstances there is in addition to the proteids already 

 enumerated a small and varying amount of albumoses and peptones. 



Having thus recognised the various proteids that occur in the cells 

 of lymphatic glands, my next endeavour was to ascertain what action, 

 if any, these exerted on the coagulation of the blood. My experi- 

 ments in this direction have been mostly performed with salted plasma. 

 The blood is received into an approximately equal volume of saturated 

 sodium sulphate solution. By this means coagulation is prevented, 

 and the corpuscles settle. On subsequently removing the supernatant 

 salted plasma, and diluting it with four or five times its bulk of water, 

 coagulation occurs after the lapse usually of several hours ; but if, 

 instead of water, a solution of fibrin ferment be used, coagulation 

 occurs in a few minutes. 



I first tried to prepare fibrin ferment from the lymphatic glands ; 

 these were freed from blood, chopped small, and placed under absolute 

 alcohol for some months ; they were then dried over sulphuric acid, 

 powdered, and the dry powder extracted with water. The water was 

 found to contain the fibrin ferment. It hastened very considerably the 

 coagulation of salted plasma. This activity was destroyed at a tem- 

 perature between 74° C. and 80° C. The watery extract gave, more- 

 over, the xanthoproteic reaction ; it contained also some sodium 

 chloride and phosphates which it had dissolved out of the dried 

 glands. 



A watery or saline extract of fresh glands also had very considerable 

 clotting powers ;* that is to say, the addition of a few drops of such 

 an extract caused diluted salted plasma to clot in a few minutes, 

 which otherwise did not clot until after the lapse of 12 — 24 hours. 

 The activity of this extract was not altered by heating to 70° ; it was 

 therefore independent of the nucleo-albumin which is disintegrated 

 at about 50° C, or of the globulin which coagulates at that tem- 

 perature. Its activity was destroyed, however, if heated above 75° C. 

 These facts show that the extracts of both dried and fresh glands 

 contain a substance which has the same properties as fibrin ferment, 



* I find tliat this fact has been preyiously noted by Kauschenbach, ' Inaug.- 

 Disserfc.,' Dorpat, 1882, p. 26. 



