ON IRON AND ITS ASSIMILATION BY THE ORGANISM. 
545 
Experiments were performed with the different reducing 
substances which chemistry disposes of. Finally pyrogallol 
was tried, and resulted in a substance called hasmogallol. 
Solution of cattle blood freed from stroma is heated with 
concentrated aqueous pyrogallol. After different manipula¬ 
tions the primary, impure, reddish brown precipitate is finally 
obtained in the pure form of a tasteless, not smeary, powder of 
dark brown color and insoluble in water. 
9.7 grammes of iron in form of hasmogallol increased the 
amount of firmly linked urine iron to the amount of 150 per 
cent. This increase cannot be attributed but to the hasmo- 
1 gallol assimilated. 
The question whether this substance contained free pyro¬ 
gallol, which pathologically, by decomposition of blood cor¬ 
puscles, would increase the iron of the urine, is absolutely ex¬ 
cluded by three experiments. Water does not dissolve any of it 
from hasmogallol. Fresh blood is not acted upon by hasmo- 
gallol and the spectrum remains unchanged. A small cat 
after the administration of 10 grammes remained in perfect 
health, and showed no diminution in the amount of red cor¬ 
puscles. 
Then animal experiments were resorted to, and it was in¬ 
variably stated that, even in excessive doses, such as never 
would apply to man, the animals remained healthy and in¬ 
creased in weight. 
When at last the experiments on man were begun it was 
shown that the action of hasmogallol upon chlorotic or anae¬ 
mic patients was invariably an extraordinarily favorable one. 
In one particular case where ferrum sulfuricum and the 
chalybeate waters of Pyrmont were without use, hasmogal¬ 
lol acted splendidly. Even an individual case of pernicious 
anaemia was doubtlessly temporarily relieved, and the num¬ 
ber of blood corpuscles, as well as of haemoglobin, was found 
to be increased. 
A female patient suffering incessantly of anaemic head¬ 
ache has been entirely cured by the use of haemogallol (Fried- 
berg). Two patients whose menses had stopped for some 
• length of time were restored to normal conditions after three 
