... It was shown that approximately half of mercury injected into a human organism is bounded by red blood cells. In this work the influence of mercuric chloride (HgCl 2 ) on the rate of oxygen uptake and release by human red blood cells was investigated. ... Incubation of red blood cells (Hct 0,2% before mixing) with HgCl 2 causes essential decrease of the oxygen uptake and release rates. At concentration of 160 ?M HgCl 2 was shown to cause the 2.7 fold decrease of oxygen uptake rate. ... Res. ...