Abstract
The mechanism of hæmolysis is investigated from the standpoint of the relation of the physico-chemical properties of the erythrocytes to their histological structure.
Evidence, both histological and physico-chemical, is brought forward that the superficial layer (envelope) of the erythrocyte plays an important part in regulating the exchange between the corpuscles and the plasma or other suspending liquid, and that alterations in this layer have an influence, often decisive, in causing liberation of the blood pigment. The alterations of the envelope, however, do not directly permit escape of the pigment, but merely allow the conditions to be established which are necessary for the transformation of the hæmochrome (the native blood pigment). This is probably present in the corpuscle in combination with stroma constituents in the form of a gel. When water passes into the erythrocyte through the altered envelope, or when in addition the hæmolytic agent acts upon the hæmochrome-stroma complex, the hæmochrome gel is transformed into an aqueous solution of hæmoglobin in the interior of the corpuscle. An aqueous solution of hæmoglobin, present now for the first time in the history of the erythrocyte, acts upon it as a foreign body, and indeed as a foreign body having itself hæmolytic powers. Once formed, the hæmoglobin solution passes out through the envelope, which has no affinity for the blood pigment, and is itself, in the intact corpuscle, free from pigment. In the more gentle methods of laking the transformation of hæmochrome into hæmoglobin solution is due partly to the action of the water which enters the corpuscle when its permeability is altered by the hæmolytic agent. When laking is accomplished by more violent methods the direct action of the hæmolytic substance on the hæmochrome-stroma complex is also an influential factor, in addition to the water action. This direct action is, of course, not excluded even in the gentlest methods of laking. Hæmochromolysis, the change of the hæmochrome into hæmoglobin in aqueous solution, may be distinguished from stromatolysis, the more profound alteration of the stroma. The former is accompanied by a relatively small and the latter by a relatively large escape of electrolytes from the corpuscles. These electrolytes are in part set free from combinations or adsorpates with colloids, but in part escape simply because of the altered permeability of the corpuscle. Some evidence is offered that the electrolytes of the erythrocytes may be divided into three fractions: a portion which escapes with even the gentlest methods of laking, a portion liberated only by energetic laking agents, and a portion only set free by such destructive processes as incineration. The hypothesis that the first fraction is in solution, the second in loose combination (or adsorbed), the third more firmly combined, has a certain plausibility. But it has not been proved that the liberation of the second fraction, or a part of it, may not be due merely to a change in the permeability of the corpuscle.
Footnotes
- Received March 26, 1909.
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