PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 389 



collections being relatively poor in preparations of the muscnlar system, 

 I have above all endeavored to fill this want. We have, indeed, made 

 many preparations of the entire muscular system of animals of medium 

 size. 



As the solution of this problem, i. e., how to make rapidly and at a 

 trilling cost, in a laboratory of second rank, large permanent rayological 

 preparations might interest i)rofessors of comparative anatomy and 

 zoology, I have thought it best to briefly relate the method which I 

 Lave employed. 



Having a horror of dried and varnished preparations, I have en- 

 deavored to prepare muscular specimens with i^henolized glycerine, 

 easily handled, and which could constantly serve for demonstration. 

 With us the muscles are red, the tendons white; in a w^ord the un- 

 initiated would believe that they saw the fresh muscle.* 



In order that I may be well understood I will give a resume of the 

 easy operations to which we have subjected a very large monkey, the 

 Cynoceplialus sphinx, in order to prepare the whole of its muscular 

 system. 



The animal being skinned, care being taken of the superficial muscles 

 or muscles of the skin, the abdomen having been split longitudinally 

 and the viscera removed, it was first of all necessary to preserve this 

 specimen from decomposition, and to employ a process which would 

 permit us to dissect all the muscles at our pleasure. 



It is impossible to use alcohol for animals of this size ; the body is 

 simply plunged into a saturated solution of the alum of commerce. 

 The muscles in a short time are capable of being indefinitely preserved, 

 and all the conjunctive elements, aponeuroses, tendons, sheathes of the 

 nerves, &c., acquire a firm consistence and become very white. 



Whenever the specimen is required for dissection it is taken from its 

 bath, and when the work is over it is replaced. 



We have thus been able to dissect at our leisure all the muscles of the 

 Cynoccphalus, continuing the labor for at least ten days. 



Having finished the dissection, it becomes necessary to impart to. the 

 muscles their original color. It is in this operation that I employ, and 

 always successfully, the process which I have exemplified since 1874, 

 and which is based on the property that carmine presents, viz, in form- 

 ing when in the presence of alum an insoluble red laquer.f 



The animal having been dissected and taken out of the bath, is 

 plunged in i)ure water for twenty-four hours ; this is done in order to 

 get rid of the excess of alum. 



* Our scholars are generally deceived up to the very moment when we explain to 

 them the mode of preparation. 



tNote on a process for giving or imparting the red color to muscles preserved iu 

 alcohol. — {Bulletin de VAcademis Boyale de Belgique, 'Z'' serie, tome XXXVIII, A'os. 9'e* 

 10, 1874.) 



