1903.] On the Optical Activity of Hmmoglobin and Gldbin. 377 



characterised and the most striking members of this group arc : 

 Firstly, the haemoglobins and their compounds. Secondly, the nucleo- 

 proteids and the nucleins. 



In haemoglobin, we have the example of a complex proteid, which 

 (lifters from all other members of the albuminous group of bodies by 

 its colour, by its marvellous power of forming easily dissociable com- 

 pounds with oxygen and certain other gases, by the facility with 

 which it admits of being crystallised and recrystallised and obtained 

 free from all foreign mineral matters, by the startling manner in 

 which its solutions fail to furnish any one of the reactions characteristic 

 of albuminous substances in solution, so long as the reagent has not 

 effected a fundamental decomposition which has liberated the albuminous and 

 coloured residue*. The researches of one of us have moreover lately 

 shown that whilst haemoglobin is a diamagnetic body, the iron-con- 

 taining products of its decomposition by acids are not merely para- 

 magnetic, but probably the most powerfully " ferromagnetic " organic- 

 bodies known to science.* 



So complete a divergence thus exists in physical and chemical pro- 

 perties between haemoglobin and the substances which are the imme- 

 diate products of its decomposition, and which are doubtless linked 

 together in it, that it appeared in the highest degree interesting to 

 ascertain whether or not, in respect to optical activity, haemoglobin 

 would behave as an albuminous body proper and prove to be "laevo- 

 gyrous." Having, if possible, determined this point, the subsequent 

 step in the research would naturally be to determine the optical 

 activity of the albuminous and coloured products of the decomposi- 

 tion of the haemoglobin molecule. 



1. — Determination of the Optical Activity of Haemoglobin. 



So far as the authors have been able to ascertain, the optical 

 activity of solutions of coloured organic bodies has not yet formed the 

 object of serious investigation. Landolt,f in the last edition of his 

 authoritative work, which contains all the reliable results relating to 

 the optical activity of organic bodies up to the date of its publication, 

 mentions only one colouring matter as having been investigated, viz., 

 the vegetable colouring matter hematoxylin, of which the alcoholic- 

 solution is said to be dextrogyrous. Nor is this neglect of the study 



* A. Gramgee, " On the Behaviour of Oxy-haemoglobiu, Carbonic-oxide-hoeino- 

 globin, Methseraoglobin, and certain of their Derivatives in the Magnetic Field, 

 with a Preliminary Note on the Electrolysis of the Haemoglobin Compounds," 

 ' Boy. Soc. Proc.,' vol. 68, p. 503. 



A. Gamgee, The Croonian Lecture for 1902, " On certain Chemical and Physi- 

 cal Properties of Haemoglobin," ' Boy. Soc. Proc.,' vol. 70, p. 79. 



t Dr. H. Landolt, 'Das Optische Drehungsvermogen Organischer Substanzen, 

 &c, Zweite ganzlich umgearbeitete Auflage,' Vieweg u. Sohn, 1898. 



