THE ELIMINATION OF DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN OBSERVED AND CALCULATED P.D. OF PROTEIN SOLUTIONS NEAR THE ISOELECTRIC POINT WITH THE AID OF BUFFER SOLUTIONS

1. It had been noticed in the previous experiments on the influence of the hydrogen ion concentration on the P.D. between protein solutions inside a collodion bag and aqueous solutions free from protein that the agreement between the observed values and the values calculated on the basis of Donnan's theory was not satisfactory near the isoelectric point of the protein solution. It was suspected that this was due to the uncertainty in the measurements of the pH of the outside aqueous solution near the isoelectric point. This turned out to be correct, since it is shown in this paper that the discrepancy disappears when both the inside and outside solutions contain a buffer salt. 2. This removes the last discrepancy between the observed P.D. and the P. D. calculated on the basis of Donnan's theory of P.D. between membrane equilibria, so that we can state that the P.D. between protein solutions inside collodion bags and outside aqueous solutions free from protein can be calculated from differences in the hydrogen ion concentration on the opposite sides of the membrane, in agreement with Donnan's formula.