156 Chapter IX 



explosion in the cylinder. The order of the processes is reversed ; 

 the contraction of a muscle is more like the running down of an 

 alarum clock. The clock is already wound, at a given moment the 

 potential energy of the spring is released and the alarm sounds. 

 It has then to be laboriously rewound. In some such way the energy 

 of muscle must be reinstated. During the period of reinstatement 

 oxidation is increased and blood is required. It is then automatically 

 supplied. 



The very orderliness of the mechanism which I have described 

 has sometimes made me picture what would happen if it became 

 disordered ; if some cataclasm should take place in the cell as the 

 result of which it shed its products broadcast. The immediate effects 

 would be redness and dilatation but these words would but feebly 

 describe the condition of affairs. The increased vascular dilatation 

 might lead to swelling, but I would refer the reader to the work of 

 Martin Fischer <16) , who supposes that acid can produce swelling 

 directly. Fisher's conclusions await further experimental support. 



If the wholesale production of metabolic products can produce 

 rubor, color, and tumor, it must produce dolor in their trttin, and so 

 we get the picture of the cardinal symptoms of inflammation produced 

 not merely by a cataclasm in the cell, but by a perversion of a beautiful 

 physiological mechanism, a perversion which has been seized upon by 

 " nature " for the ultimate removal of the cause of the calamity. 



REFERENCES 



(1) Barcroft and Shore, Journal of Physiol. XLV, p. 296, 1912. 



(2) Burton-Opitz, Quarterly Journal ofExp. PA?/m>/.ni,p.297, 1910; iv,p. 113, 1911. 



(3) Severini, quoted from Gaskell (4). 



(4) Gaskell, Journal of Physiol. in, p. 48, 1880. 



(5) Dale and Laidlavv, Ibid. XLIII, p. 182, 1911. 



(6) Barcroft, Ibid, xxxv, p. 19, 1907 and xxxvi, p. 53, 1908 ; Carlson, Greer and 



Becht, Amer. Journ. of Physiol. xx, p. 180, 1907 ; McLean, Ibid, xxn, 

 p. 279, 1908 ; Barcroft and Piper, Journal of Physiol. XLIV, p. 359, 1912. 



(7) Barcroft and Muller, Ibid. XLIV, p. 259, 1912. 



(8) Bayliss, Ibid, xxxvn, p. 256, 1908. 



(9) A slier, Zeitschr.f. Biologie, LII, p. 325, 1909. 



(10) May, Otto, Journal nf Physiol. xxx, p. 400, 1904. 



(11) Bayliss and Starling, Ibid, xxvm, p. 357, 1902. 



(12) Barcroft and Dixon, Ibid, xxxv, p. 182, 1907. 



(13) Haymans and Kochmann, Arch. Pharm. et de Tlierap. xm, p. 379, 1904. 



(14) Report of the Brit. Assoc.for the Advancement of Science, 1907, pp. 401 2. 



(15) Verzar, Journal of Physiol. XLIV, p. 256, 1912. 



(16) Martin Fischer, Oedema. 



