Contributions
His numerous investigations include studies of blood, hemoglobin, pus, bile, milk, and urine. Hoppe-Seyler was the first scientist to describe the optical absorption spectrum of the red blood pigment and its two distinctive absorption bands. He also recognized the binding of oxygen to erythrocytes as a function of hemoglobin, which in turn creates the compound oxyhemoglobin. Hoppe-Seyler was able to obtain hemoglobin in crystalline form, and confirmed that it contained iron.
Hoppe-Seyler performed studies of chlorophyll, and is credited with the isolation of several different proteins (which he called proteids). He was also the first to purify lecithin and establish its composition. In 1877 he founded the Zeitschrift für Physiologische Chemie (Journal for Physiological Chemistry), and was its editor until his death in 1895. He died in Wasserburg am Bodensee in the Kingdom of Bavaria.
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