The hydrogen‐ion concentration of blood corpuscles

Abstract

SOME work has been done previously (Taylor(25)) on the possibility of using the Donnan membrane equilibrium as a means of investigating the ions inside the blood corpuscles. The determinations in those cases were done at room temperature and very few precautions taken against loss of CO2, and on the whole the results were of more qualitative than quantitative importance. It was also desirable that the quantity of blood used should be not more than 30 c.c. so that one subject could supply the blood for the whole determinations. This gives the relationship between the pH's on both sides of the membrane. The sign of the potential difference will depend upon whether the indiffusible ion is an anion or a cation. The sign of the potential difference can be shown to be related to the sign of the charge on the protein ion in such a way that the side containing the indiffusible ion is positive when that ion is a cation and negative when it is an anion (Michaelis(20)