506 Prof. A. Gamgee. On the Behaviour of Oxy-hcemoglobin, 



Current in A inpftvpa 



Magnetic Field 

 in C.Gr.S. units. 



2-4 



516 



33 



700 



4-2 



870 



Probably it is safe as an approximate estimate to assume that my 

 field was about 1000 C.G.S. units with a current of 5 amperes. 



All the fundamental experiments on the magnetic properties of oxy- 

 hemoglobin, CO-hsemoglobin, and methsemoglobin were made by 

 suspending cakes of the dried crystalline bodies by means of one or a 

 few fibres of silk between the poles, thus avoiding the disturbing influ- 

 ence of glass tubes, however feebly magnetic. In the case of hsemin 

 the substance was similarly examined, in the first instance, by suspend- 

 ing as far as possible rectangular cakes formed by the aggregation of 

 microscopic crystals. In the case of hsematin, the substance, being in 

 an amorphous pulverulent condition, was necessarily examined in glass 

 tubes, but its intensely magnetic properties prevented in its case, as in 

 that of hsemin, any difficulties arising from the very feebly magnetic 

 properties of the glass tube containing it. 



4. Oxy-hcemoglobin a strongly Diamagnetic Body. 



The oxy-hsemoglobin employed in the present research was prepared 

 by myself during the past winter from the blood of the horse by 

 employing substantially the method of Hoppe-Seyler. In some cases 

 the blood corpuscles were separated from the defibrinated blood by 

 long continued centrifugalising ; generally, however, the defibrinated 

 blood was mixed with ten times its volume of a mixture made by 

 diluting 10 volumes of saturated NaCl solution with 90 volumes of 

 distilled water, and the corpuscles were then separated by means of the 

 centrifuge. 



In either case, the magma of corpuscles was treated with a small 

 quantity of distilled water and pure ether, and the mixture having 

 been thoroughly agitated in a stoppered separating funnel, the aqueous 

 solution of the blood-colouring matter was separated and filtered into' 

 flasks surrounded with ice, and subsequently treated with one-fourth of 

 its volume of pure absolute alcohol at a temperature of - 5° C, and 

 the mixture placed in an ice chamber for twenty-four • or thirty-six 

 hours. The oxy-hsemoglobin which crystallised was separated from its 

 mother-liquor by means of the centrifuge. The crystalline mass was 

 repeatedly washed with distilled water at 0° C, and the washed 

 crystals treated with distilled water at 30° C. ; the saturated solution 



