Abstract
Bauer, 1 Klemensiewicz, 2 Sherndal, 3 Raiziss and Gavron, 4 and others, have demonstrated that both arsphenamine and neoarsphenamine belong to the group of emulsoid “semi-colloids”. Hirsch-felder and Wright 5 studied the effects of neoarsphenamine and other semi-colloids on solutions of egg albumin and rabbit plasma and concluded that “the fact that most of these substances react strongly with proteins, producing ultramicroscopic, and in some cases macroscopic, changes in the proteins, lends strong support to the idea that anaphylactoid and febrile reactions following the injection of these substances into the blood stream, are due to definite changes brought about in the hydration and aggregation of the blood proteins”.
Raiziss and Gavron determined the degree of colloidality of a few samples of arsphenamine and neoarsphenamine by means of dialysis, using parchment membranes. Such membranes are relatively impermeable, and permitted only a small fraction of the arsenical to pass through.
Dialysis experiments using both arsphenamine and neoarsphenamine with viscose and cellophane membranes of varied permeability indicate that both of these arsenicals contain particles of many sizes ranging from the true crystalloid which will pass through membranes of slight permeability to particles which must be large aggregates since they fail to pass through the most permeable membranes we have employed.
Arsphenamine HCl may be maintained in aqueous solution under nitrogen indefinitely without evidence of deterioration, since the iodine value remains constant and tests for arsenoxide were always negative. Dialysis through viscose membranes does not produce either oxidation or precipitation. Solutions of sodium arsphenamine under nitrogen are stable in the absence of a membrane.
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