Delayed Hemolysis of Human Erythrocytes I N Solutions of Glucose by Edward B. Hendry

When normal oxygenated blood is diluted 1 in 20 in a series of glucose solutions of different concentrations at 20°C., hemolysis does not begin until the concentration is reduced to about 2.2 gin. per 100 cc. and is complete when the concentration is further reduced to about 1.2 gm. per 100 cc. No standard series of osmotic hemolysis curves in glucose solutions has been carried out; suffice it to say that the fragility curve is a typical sigmoid curve exactly comparable to that obtained when solutions of sodium chloride are used. But apart from the ordinary osmotic hemolysis phenomenon there also occurs, under certain conditions, a sequence of events which may conveniently be described as "delayed hemolysis." Delayed hemolysis consists of an interval after the addition of the blood to the glucose solution, during which there is no visible alteration in the system (the prolytic phase), followed by a period during which hemolysis slowly proceeds to completion (the hemolytic phase). There need be no manipulation of the system other than gentle mixing at long intervals. The prolytic phase normally lasts about 1 to 11⁄4 hours and the hemolytic phase about 2 hours. The following procedure describes the conditions under which delayed hemolysis may best be observed, and it forms the prototype for all subsequent experiments.