EFFECTS ON THE MUSCULATURE 1 69 



staining with scarlet red, etc.) do not appear to vary much under moderate 

 fluctuations in the degree of nutrition. In the rat and cat, however, the 

 liposomes during starvation decrease notably in size, number and staining 

 capacity. For the rat, this was confirmed by Bullard ('12). Krause ('n) 

 also states that the fat droplets in muscle fibers are dependent upon the nutritive 

 condition of the animal. In starved dogs, Morgulis, Howe and Hawk ('15) 

 found indistinctness of the striations, but no swelling or granular degeneration 

 of the muscle fibers. 



In the muscle fibers, as previously mentioned in Chapter VI for adipose 

 tissue, the fat is apparently of two kinds: (1) the ordinary (neutral) fat, which is 

 easily removed by inanition ; and (2) the phosphorized, lipoidal fat, which strongly 

 resists inanition and in extreme stages becomes increased in amount by fatty 

 degeneration or infiltration (v. Gierke, '21). 



In Amia calva after 20 months of starvation, Smallwood ('16) found the 

 skeletal muscle fibers in various degrees of degeneration and disintegration, 

 which appeared to involve progressively: (1) the cross striations; (2) the sarco- 

 plasm; and (3) the nucleus. 



Moulton ('20, '20a) observed that in the skeletal muscle of underfed steers 

 there is a marked loss of nitrogen as well as of fat, with notable decrease in the 

 size of the muscle fibers, but no obvious change in histological structure. Thus 

 the muscles form an important storehouse for protein, as well as for fat and 

 glycogen. 



In the Young. — So far as they have been observed, the changes in the struc- 

 ture of the muscle in young individuals appear in general similar to those in 

 adults. Walbaum ('90) observed that in malnourished children there is a 

 decreased content in the fatty granules of the skeletal muscles excepting the 

 eye muscles. Moenckeberg ('12) described the atrophic and degenerative 

 changes during malnutrition in the muscle and other tissues. Lesage and Cleret 

 ('14) found a marked interstitial sclerosis in the muscle tissue of infants with 

 congenital spasmodic atrophy. According to Nobecourt ('16), Variot and 

 Ferrand studied the diameter of crural muscle fibers in malnourished infants. 

 In the " hypotrophic " infants (with moderately retarded growth) the muscle 

 fibers show a variable degree of diminution in diameter; but the fibers in the more 

 severely malnourished are said to show no decrease in diameter. "La fibre 

 striee des enfants amaigris, meme dans le cas ou cet amaigrissement est consider- 

 able et ou Tenfant n'a que la moitie du poids qu'il devrait avoir pour son age et 

 pour sa taille, n'est presque pas diminuee de volume." This remarkable finding 

 needs verification, although it is quite possible that in the young the muscle 

 fibers tend to resist a decrease in volume during inanition. As was noted 

 above, the total mass of the musculature in underfed young rats not only fails 

 to decrease, but usually even increases slightly in amount, with nearly constant 

 body weight. 



Morpurgo ('98a) concluded that the general law of post-embryonal develop- 

 ment in the musculature is the same as in other tissues. There is an early 

 period of cellular differentiation, governed by heredity and independent of nutri- 

 tion and function (Roux). The later growth of the muscle fibers is not governed 



