Adsorption and Hæmoglobin

Abstract

As I have in other places entered a plea for more consideration of the possibility that adsorption may play some part in the phenomena of the taking up of oxygen by hæmoglobin, a few remarks on the letter by Mr. N. K. Adam in NATURE of April 14 may be permitted me, chiefly with the object of making clear my attitude in the matter. It is briefly this. Nearly all, if not all, of the workers on the problem direct their attention only to the investigation and interpretation of these phenomena from the point of view of mass action in a homogeneous system. Now, while this may ultimately turn out to be the correct view, it must not be overlooked that hæmoglobin under most conditions exists in the form of colloidal aggregates. Thus, surface phenomena may intervene and should receive due consideration, even if only to be put on one side. This has not been attempted to any serious extent, since Wo. Ostwald showed that the data of the taking up of oxygen by hæmoglobin could be expressed by an adsorption formula. It is true that such a formula, as Mr. Adam says, contains two arbitrary constants, and fitting it to the experimental data does not prove anything as to the nature of the phenomena. But the same statements may be made with regard to the widely accepted Barcroft-Hill expression.