134 Analyses of Booh, [Aug. 



Article X. 



Analyses of Books. 



Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, for 

 1826. Parts I. and 11. 



{Continued from p. 60.) 



III. Observations on the Changes which have taken Place in 

 same ancient Alloys of Copper ; by John Davy, MD. FRS. : in 

 a Letter to Sir H. Davy, PRS. 



An abstract of this paper will be found in the Atmalsfoi Dec. 

 1825, p. 465. 



IV. Additional Proofs of Animal Heat being influenced by the 

 Nerves : by Sir E. Home, Bart. VPRS. 



V. 2'he Croonian Lecture, — On the Structure of a Muscular 

 Fibre from which is derived its Elongation and Contraction ; by 

 the same Author 



The following extracts contain the substance of this lecture : 



"As far back as the year 1818, while considering the mode 

 in which coagulated blood is rendered vascular, I brought for- 

 ward a magnified drawing of a muscular fibre made by Mr. 

 Bauer, showing it to be composed of a single row of globules 

 _._i__. parts of an inch in diameter, or, in other words, of red 

 globules deprived of their colouring matter." 



" In this former examination of muscular structure, that 

 the integrant fibre might be more easily separated from the 

 fasciculus to which it belonged, we had gone into the same 

 error with those physiologists who have made diagrams of the 

 internal appearance of the brain, after coagulation, and had 

 boiled the muscle previous to the examination ; not being aware 

 that this process must decompose red globules, should any exist, 

 and cause the colouring matter to be separated. Boiling would 

 also destroy any connecting medium by which the globules are 

 united together; so that, if 1 may use the expression, there 

 would only be the skeleton of a muscular fibre remaining "to be 

 examined. 



" Upon the present occasion, therefore, the fibres belonging 

 to the fasciculi that compose the great muscle that lies upon 

 the back of the bullock's neck, to raise the head, were selected, 

 and were examined in 24 hours after the animal was killed ; an(^ 

 we know that in all* violent deaths, the muscular fibres continue 

 capable of contraction beyond that period, after apparent death 

 has taken place. 



" In this muscle the fasciculi are more loosely connected 

 together than in ahnost any other animal body ; and in the inter- 

 stices between them there is no fat ; but Mr. Bauer found that 

 iu this recent state the fibres are held so firmly together by the 



