Observations on some of the colouring matters of the bile and urine, with especial reference to their origin : and on an easy method of procuring haematin from blood / by C.A. Mac Munn.

  • MacMunn, Charles Alexander, 1852-1911.
Date:
[1883]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on some of the colouring matters of the bile and urine, with especial reference to their origin : and on an easy method of procuring haematin from blood / by C.A. Mac Munn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and spectra which it undergoes are most characteristic\ BiliverJin also in alcoholic solution is free from bands, whether it be prepared from bilirubin or obtained from herbivorous bile; it absorbs however a little of the red and violet ends of the spectrum and sends through green inten- sified, and when treated with nitric acid the same changes of spectra are seen as in the case of bilirubin. All general statements affirming the presence of absorption bands in bile are incorrect. In Dal ton's Physio- logy for instance, the statement occurs that biliverdin possesses three bands, but in this instance Dr Dalton has concluded that the green colour of sheep's bile furnishes the three bands which, as I shall shew, are generally present in sheep and ox bile, but in reality it owes its green colour for the most part to a biliverdin-like pigment^ and this when separated from the bile possesses no band whatever: the bands being due to a changed haematin as 1 have proved^ and not to biliverdin at all. I have already called attention to the fact that the bile of some animals yields bands, but when present they are doubtless due to the presence of a colouring matter which is a derivative of haematin. I wish now to call attention to the body in the bile of the sheep and ox which gives the three- or four-banded spectrum. This spectrum is not constant in the bile of the sheep and ox: it is sometimes only present in traces, and then replaced by a green pigment, which diti'ers from the biliverdin prepared in the usual way from bilirubin in the peculiarity that it goes into chloroform when the bile—after precipitation of mucus, &c. with absolute alcohol and acetic acid, and filtering—is shaken in a separating funnel with chloroform; still it possesses the same absorptive property as biliverdin. When the band-giving pigment is present in ox bile, its bands give approximately the following readings : 1st band centre at \ 649, 2nd band from \ 613 to 585, 3rd band from Xd77'o to 5615, 4th band from \ 537 to 521-5 (?). On adding absolute alcohol, a few drops of acetic acid, filtering, agitating with chloroform, separating, and filtering, a bronze-coloured solution is obtained which gives the same four-banded spectrum : 1st band from \ 654 to 636, 2nd band from \ 607 to 580'5, 1 Cf. The Spectroscope in Medicine, 1880. Also Proc. Roy. Sac, loc. cit. 2 Which however goes into chloroform and amyl alcohol. Proc. Poy. Soc, loc. cit.