A new and delicate biological method of detecting carbon monoxide in blood.

Abstract

In connection with a phytopharmacological study of menstrual toxin by Macht and Lubin published elsewhere, the authors had occasion to examine the effects of various specimens of pathological blood on the growth of plants and found that some of them were quite toxic for plant protoplasm. Inasmuch as carbon monoxide forms a firm compound with hemoglobin, it was thought possible that such blood might exert a poisonous effect on phytopharmacological preparations. Accordingly experiments were made with carbon monoxide blood of various animals on the growth of seedlings of Lupinus albus by methods described elsewhere. Series of seedlings were suspended in normal Shive solutions on the one hand and in solutions of normal blood and of monoxide blood on the other hand. It was found that carbon monoxide blood was extremely toxic for plant protoplasm and furthermore that this toxicity, biologically speaking, was proportional to the concentration of carbon monoxide in the blood. The sensitiveness of Lupinus albus roots to carbon monoxide blood is illustrated by the following data. Some defibrinated pig's blood was saturated with pure carbon monoxide, and solutions of this blood were made in a mixture of equal parts of Shive and distilled water. It was found that a 1 per cent solution of blood produced a very marked inhibition and even 0.1 per cent solution of the blood also produced a distinct and easily measurable inhibition in the elongation of the roots. Further experiments indicated that solutions of monoxide blood as dilute as 0.01 per cent produced in sensitive preparations a definite inhibition in the growth of seedlings as compared with the growth of a similar series of seedlings immersed in a similar solution of normal rpig's blood.