Colourless Crystals of Hæmoglobin

Abstract

CRYSTALS of hæmatoidin in old blood extravasations in tissues are not—or at any rate have not been in the cases I have examined —soluble in chloroform or other solvents of bilirubin either with or without acidification. The colour dissolves out readily enough, but a transparent shape remains in the form of the original crystal. I have assumed that this remnant is a proteid basis similar to those which are well known in the crystals of urinary deposits and in calculi, and it is possible that Prof. Fraser Harris's curious experiences with hæmoglobin crystals are explicable along these lines. It is at least likely that hæmoglobin crystals prepared in the ordinary way contain also some serum proteid.