Abstract
II. THE next step was the discovery of the important part performed in respiration by the colouring matter of the red blood corpuscles. Chemically, these corpuscles consist of about 30 or 40 per cent. of solid matter. These solids contain only about 1 per cent. of inorganic salts, chiefly those of potash; whilst the remainder are almost entirely organic. Analysis has shown that 100 parts of dry organic matter contain of hæmoglobin, the colouring matter, no less than 90.54 per cent.: of proteid substances, 8.67; of lecithin, 0.54; and of cholesterine, 0.25. The colouring matter, haemoglobin, was first obtained in a crystalline state by Funke in 1853, and subsequently by Lehmann. It has been analyzed by Hoppe-Seyler and Carl Schmidt, with the result of showing that it has a perfectly constant composition. Hoppe-Seyler's analysis first appeared in 1868. It is now well known to be the most complicated of organic substances, having a formula, as deduced, from the analyses I have just referred to, by Preyer (1871), of C600H960N154FeS3O179.
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The Gases of the Blood 1 . Nature 38, 399–404 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/038399a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/038399a0