THE EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN HEMOGLOBIN AND OXYGEN IN THE BLOOD OF CERTAIN FISHES

In studies made on the hemoglobin of certain teleost fishes Root (1931) found that carbon dioxide had a remarkable effect on the ability of the blood to combine with oxygen. As in the case of mammalian blood, the addition of acid decreases the amount of oxygen combined with the hemoglobin at any given oxygen tension, but in these fish bloods the addition of acid decreases also the total amount of oxygen that can be combined even when the oxygen tension is increased to that of air. As a consequence the suggestion was made that the prosthetic groups in the hemoglobin molecule were differentially affected by the presence of acid, some being inactivated entirely so that they no longer combined with oxygen. Since confirmation of this suggestion promised to throw new light on the theory of the equilibrium between oxygen and hemoglobin, the phenomenon has been examined in greater detail. In the present study we have examined the blood of the tautog, TauÃga onitis Linnams, the goosefish, Lophius piscatoriu