Sugar of Human Blood. 



17 



carbonate is also added to the tube containing the acid mixture. 

 After heating for 30 minutes the color in each tube has reached 

 its maximum and they are allowed to cool. The contents of the 

 tubes are diluted to a suitable volume and matched against a 

 standard solution in a colorimeter. The readings for the tube 

 which was alkaline at the beginning of the heating represents 

 the glucose and fructose and the other tube represents these 

 sugars plus the invert sugar from the sucrose. 



When this method is applied to solids or semisolids, such as 

 mashed fruit pulps, 1-10 grams are taken and triturated in a 

 mortar with 100 c.c. water including the moisture of the sample 

 and a clear liquid obtained by filtering or centrifuging. 



Picric acid may also be used as the inverting agent in the 

 determination of cane sugar by polarizing. The picric acid has 

 no influence on the rotation of the polarized light and in many 

 instances it acts as a clarifier and as a remover of soluble proteins. 

 In practice it is well to add the picric acid in the form of a saturated 

 solution, either one or two parts to each part of sugar solution to 

 be determined, and to heat not more than twenty minutes in the 

 boiling water bath. Glucose and fructose are both stable under 

 these conditions. 



118 (1296) 



The influence of anesthesia and alkali therapy on the diastatic 

 activity and sugar of human blood. 



By John A. Killian (by invitation). 



[From the Laboratory of Pathological Chemistry, New York Post- 

 Graduate Medical School and Hospital.] 



To study the effect of general anesthesia, produced by ether 

 or chloroform, on the activity of the diastase and the sugar 

 content of human blood, samples of blood were obtained from 

 patients in the surgical service of the hospital, 12-24 hours before 

 operation. A second sample of blood was drawn immediately 

 after the operation, while the patient was still under the anesthetic. 

 Determinations of the sugar content and diastatic activity, were 

 made in these two specimens as described in an earlier com- 



