1903.] On the Nucle-oproteicls of the Pancreas, etc. 



385 



tion than is possible in the actual state of our knowledge of this 

 body. 



We hope to be able to carry out these further investigations, and to 

 direct our attention to the optical activity of the coloured products 

 of the decomposition of the haemoglobin molecule, especially 

 haemochromogen and hsematin and their coloured derivatives. 



In conclusion, we have to express our thanks to the Managers of the 

 Davy-Faraday Laboratory of the Royal Institution for the facilities 

 which they afforded us in carrying on the optical part of our work. 



' On the Nucleoproteids of the Pancreas, Thymus, and Suprarenal 

 Gland, with especial Preference to their Optical Activity." 

 By Arthur Gamgee, M.D., F.R.S., Emeritus Professor of 

 Physiology in the Owens College, Victoria University, and 

 Walter Jones, Ph.D.. Associate Professor of Physiological 

 Chemistry in the Johns Hopkins University. Received 

 February 9, — Read February 12, 1903. 



Part I. — Bibliographical and Critical. 



In a research in which one of us was associated with Dr. A. Croft Hill, 

 it was discovered that Haemoglobin is a dextrorotatory body, whilst 

 the interesting Histon-like albuminous substance Globin, which is 

 obtained by the splitting up of Haemoglobin under the influence of 

 highly diluted hydrochloric acid, and of which the characters, no less 

 than the mode of preparation, have only been known since the researches 

 of Fr. N. Schulz, is a normally lsevogyrous albuminous body. 



These interesting observations naturally suggested the probability 

 that the Nucleoproteids might, like Haemoglobin, prove to be dextro- 

 gyrous, and the research of which the first results are contained in 

 this paper is the outcome of this idea. The hypothesis has been fully 

 confirmed, as will be shown in the sequel, and it has thus been proved 

 that some of the members of a group of albuminous bodies of great 

 importance in the life-history of the organism, are dextrorotatory 

 bodies. 



The preparation of nucleoproteids of such purity and especially 

 so free from contaminating colouring matters as to yield solutions 

 sufficiently transparent and colourless for polarimetric work, was a 

 necessary preliminary to our special researches, and has led to the 

 discovery of many facts of interest in relation to the chemistry of 

 the nucleoproteids. 



