413 



The Specific Conductivity of Solutions of Oxyhemoglobin. 

 By Prof. Gr. X. Stewart. 



(Communicated by Sir J. E. Bradford, K.C.M.G., Sec. E.S. Eeceived May 23 — 

 Eead June 27, 1912.) 



(From the H. K. Gushing Laboratory of Experimental Medicine, Western Eeserve 

 University, Cleveland. U.S.A.) 



When preparing a paper on the mechanism of hemolysis two or three 

 years ago* my attention was accidentally called to a statement in a paper 

 by the late Prof. A. Gamgee in the 'Proceedings' of the Eoyal Society,! 

 that " although solutions of oxyhemoglobin possess a low conductivity this 

 is very much higher than has been found in the previous observations of 

 Stewart." In a note appended to my paper I suggested that this could only 

 mean " that either his (G-aingee's) oxyhemoglobin or his distilled water was 

 less thoroughly freed from electrolytes than mine. In observations of this 

 kind the error must appear as too high and not as too low a conductivity." 



Prof. Gamgee having laid stress on the purity of his distilled water and 

 oxyhemoglobin, this result seemed very puzzling, all the more as my object 

 in determining the conductivity of some specimens of oxyhemoglobin! was 

 merely to control their suitability for addition to blood in the determination 

 of the relative volume of corpuscles and plasma by a colorimetric method 

 described in the paper, and no such effort has been made to carry the 

 exclusion of foreign electrolytes to the practically possible limit as would 

 have been deemed indispensable had the conductivity of haemoglobin been 

 investigated for its own sake. 



Having tried in vain to procure a full report of the Croonian Lecture in 

 which Prof. Gamgee's research was embodied, I had almost given up hope of 

 being able to solve the puzzle. A few weeks ago, however, on looking again 

 at the abstract in the ' Proceedings ' of the Society, the probable explanation 

 of Prof. Gamgee's mistake occurred to me. My experiments on the con- 

 ductivity of animal liquids were begun more than 20 years ago,§ and 

 specific conductivity in all the papers was expressed, as was usual at that 



* ' Journ. Pharm. and Exper. Therap.,' 1909, vol. 1, p. 49. 



t 1902, vol. 70, p. 82. 



\ ' Journ. Physiol.,' 1899, vol. 24, p. 356. 



§ ' Studies from the Physiological Laboratory of the Owens College, Victoria Univer- 

 sity, Manchester, 1 1891, p. 124; 'Physiol. Soc. Proc.,' Nov. 8, 1890; 'Journ. Physiol.,' 

 vol. 11, p. 15 ; Boston Society of Medical Sciences, June 15, 1897 ; 'Journ. Physiol.,' 1897, 

 vol. 22, p. 159 ; ibid., 1899, vol. 24, p. 211, etc. 



