The mechanism of hæmolysis with special reference to the relations of electrolytes to cells / by G.N. Stewart.

  • George Neil Stewart
Date:
[1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mechanism of hæmolysis with special reference to the relations of electrolytes to cells / by G.N. Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Koeppe® has attempted to explain the various kinds of hemolysis as the result of simple chemical and physical changes in theenvelope of the corpuscle. The appearance of novelty in these conclusions is partly obtained by his ignoring the results of previous workers. On the whole also his explanations are too “simple.”’ For example, heat-laking is due, he says, really following Hermann,* to the melting of the fatty substances in the wall of the corpuscle when the temperature corre- sponding to their melting point isreached. This does not explain why in cautious heat-laking the stromata still contain the greater part of their electrolytes, whereas, in saponin-laking the electrolytes leave the stromata in relatively large amounts. Nor does it explain why electro- lytes can be brought out of the ghosts of heat-laked blood by saponin, a substance which is believed to act on the corpuscles in virtue of its power of dissolving lipoids, and to an equal extent by water, which must affect the corpuscles in a different way. Again, Koeppe’s explanation of heat-laking takes no account of the fact that although ether and saponin greatly increase the conductivity of formaldehyde-fixed corpuscles by acting on the lipoids, heating formaldehyde corpuscles to the tempera- ture of heat-laking does not increase the conductivity of the suspension, but may even slightly diminish it-just as in normal blood.’” Further, the temperature at which heat-laking occurs is not a perfectly definite temperature, but depends both on the duration of the heating and on the condition of the corpuscles. The rapidity and completeness of heat- laking also depend on the nature and the concentration of the suspend- ing liquid. For instance, cane sugar delays laking although it does not prevent it.’® These observations have been confirmed by Gros.?® Peskind”® has carefully investigated the mechanism of ether-laking and sums up “in favor of the hypothesis that. the cause of ether-laking is the solution and extraction of cholesterin and lecithin from the envel- opes of the corpuscles.”” “ Yet,’ he cautiously adds, “a more extended research may show that it is only the modification of these substances by ether and not their solution that is the cause.” For he found that ether saturated with cholesterin caused laking in the same strength as ether itself. 16 Pfluger’s Archiv, xcix,.p. 33,-1903, 16 Pfliger’s Archiv, lxxiv, p. 164, 1899; xci, p. 164, 1902. 17 Stewart: Journ. of Med. Research, viii, p. 307, 1902. te iDid. peau 19 Archiv fiir exp. Path. und Pharm., lvii, p. 64..
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