ON HAEMOGLOBIN METABOLISM IN 
MALARIAL FEVER 
BY 
G. C. E. SIMPSON, B.A., B.Sc., F.R.C.S. 
(Received for publication 15 November, 1910)* 
I. INTRODUCTION 
The following studies were carried out at the suggestion oi 
Major Ross on some of the thirty-three cases of malaria which have 
occurred since January, 1910, at the Royal Southern Hospital, 
Liverpool, and which have already been reported upon by him and 
Dr. David Thomson in their paper on 1 Enumerative Studies on 
Malarial Fever.’t The funds for the research were allotted to the 
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine by the Advisory Committee 
for the Tropical Diseases Research Fund (Colonial Office). Much of 
the work was done in the laboratory of Professor Benjamin Moore, 
University of Liverpool, to whom we are indebted for advice and 
assistance. 
The object of the research was to ascertain the fate of the 
haemoglobin, which is well known to be set free from the red corpuscles 
in malarial fever, and to measure its amount, in the ultimate hope that 
more light might thus be thrown on various problems connected with 
malaria, and especially with blackwater fever. The daily details of 
my findings are incorporated in the tables of the paper just 
mentioned, in order that they may be read in connection with the 
marked fall, recorded by the haemoglobinometer, in the haemoglobin 
of the circulating blood during the pyrexial periods. 
II. PRELIMINARY 
At first a careful search of the urine was made during and after 
the malarial paroxysms in eight patients. No trace of haemoglobin 
or of haemin or other immediate derivatives of haemoglobin was 
found, except in two cases, where a few red blood corpuscles were 
‘(Read in abstract before the Roval Society. Dec. 8. and reprinted from Proc. Roy. Snc., 
Senes B„ Vol. LXXXIII. p. t 74 i 
t Annals ofTrop. Med. and Pnraiit., Vol. IV. No. 3, p. 267. 
