556 



Time 1 min. 



ventricle has decreased. Here also the mechanical proportions have 



consequently assumed such a cha- 

 racter that an active abbreviation 

 of the heart-muscle cannot express 

 itself. After the substitution of the 

 water by the fluid of Ringer the 

 restoration of the systoles sets in, 

 but first an allongation of the heart- 

 muscle has occurred again on ac- 

 ^"'S- 2- count of a decrease of the inflation. 



Fig. 2 shows these proportions distinctly. The restoration of the 

 systoles is not complete here, because the stagnation has lasted 

 rather long. A complete restoration of the systoles of the ventricle 

 can however easily be obtained by imbibing the heart for a short 

 time with water. 



Consequently the disappearance of the contractility, whilst the 

 conductivity and irritability continue to exist, as Biedermann and 

 Engelmann supposed to be the case for the skeleton-muscles and 

 the heart, are only an apparent phenomenon. In order to show, 

 that the processes that are the causes of the contraction really take 

 place in the heart that is swollen by water, 1 had recourse to the 

 string-galvanometer. After having placed 1 unpolarisable electrode 

 on the point of the heart and 1 on the atrioventricular limit I 

 registered the action-currents from the imbibed (with the solution 

 of Ringer) suspended frogs' hearts. When now I imbibed the heart 

 with water, it stood soon still in the maximal abbreviation-state on 

 account of the inflation. The action-currents continued for some time 

 in the beginning of the stagnation, (vide fig. 3). In this way it was 

 ascertained, that during the stagnation in the maximal abbreviation- 

 state the automation and the conductivity of the heart had remained 

 intact. 



I may be allowed to devote a single word to the criticism that 

 Kaiser thought necessary to pronounce with regard to Biedermann's 

 and Engelmann's experiments. This physiologist attributed the results 

 of Biedermann and Engelmann to currentloops that should have 

 induced to contraction from the stimulator the part of the muscle 

 (of the heart) that had been in contact with the water. They do not 

 deserve this criticism. My experiments, in which the stagnating 

 imbibed frogs' hearts produced still electograms, teach us, that in 

 reality the processes that cause the contraction and the conductivity 

 can continue to exist. The experiments of Biederman and Engelmann 

 remain consequently unimpeachable. 



