The reaction between oxygen and hemoglobin

Abstract

There are at present four different views as to the nature of the absorption of oxygen by blood.The first and oldest view is expressed by the reation, 1 mol. hemoglobin + 1 mol. oxygen 1 mol. oxyhemoglobin. According to the law of mass action one would havein which a represents the concentration of hemoglobin in solution, b the oxygen concentration, c the concentration of oxyhemoglobin, and k a constant.The second view is that of Bohr. Bohr assumed that hemoglobin in aqueous solution is hydrolytically split into globin + Fe-component, and that the Fe-component combines reversibly with oxygen. Bohr's formulation of this hypothesis leads to an equation of the fourth degree. Without going into details it will suffice to call attention to the main points of Bohr's work as far as we are concerned here. They are, in addition to the assumed hydrolysis of hemoglobin in aqueous solution, first, the inapplicability of formula (1) to his results and secondly, the variation of the ratio oxygen absorbed/total hemoglob...