Abstract
It is almost universally recognized that Haldane's figure for the oxygen capacity of human blood (18.5 vol. p. c.) is too low. In spite of this the old standard is still used. A recent text book 1 states that “the standard (referring to Haldane's) is regarded by American workers as too low,” and Drinker, 2 in describing a hemoglobin standard, writes that “although the blood of normal men in this country .… contains on the average 16.6 gm. of hemoglobin which would correspond to an oxygen capacity of about 22 p. c., it was thought best to keep Haldane's standard for the present.” It appears unreasonable to accept as a standard a scale on which every normal blood is well over 100 p.c. Haldane's figure was based on an original series of 12 men 3 and substantiated later by a second series of equal size. 4 Although Haldane's method of analysis has long since outlived its usefulness, and we now have an accurate and simple method for determining blood oxygen, no extensive observations on normal subjects have been reported.
We have determined, during the winter months, the oxygen capacity of the blood of 115 healthy male students ranging in age from 18 to 30, most of whom were born and have always lived in the South. Specimens were taken during the morning, oxalated (20 mg. per 10 cc), and determinations made the same afternoon. The blood was oxygenated at room temperature with a gentle stream of air bubbles and the oxygen capacity determined on 2 cc. samples in the Van Slyke-Neill 5 constant volume manometric apparatus, the oxygen being determined directly by absorption with the sodium hydrosulphite reagent to which sodium anthroquinone-β-sulphonate was added as a catalyser.
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