50 ELASTIC TISSUE. 



electricity (E. H. and E. Weber*). The elastic fibres themselves 

 are wholly deficient in animal contractility, and are only dis- 

 tinguished for their extraordinary elasticity, a property which is not 

 destroyed by spirit, or by boiling (J. Miiller). 



The chemical investigations of elastic tissue which have been 

 hitherto made, have unfortunately not led us to any clear knowledge 

 of its constitution and general chemical relations. J. Miillerf 

 and EulenbergJ obtained by the prolonged boiling of elastic 

 tissues, a non-gelatinising fluid, which yielded some reactions 

 similar to those afforded by long-boiled chondrin. Mulder and 

 Donders failed, on the other hand, in obtaining any gelatinous sub- 

 stance, after forty hours' boiling, from well-purified elastic tissue, 

 which had been freed from all admixture of connective tissue and 

 fibre-cells, by means of acetic acid and a solution of potash ; and 

 they also found on making a micro-chemical examination, that the 

 fibres were entirely unchanged. 



M. S. Schultze|| has arrived at the conclusion, that the purified 

 elastic fibre of the arterial coats is but slightly, or not at all changed, 

 even after it has been boiled for sixty hours with water; whilst on the 

 other hand, it becomes converted into a brownish non-gelatinising 

 fluid, which has an odour of gelatin, after 30 hours 5 boiling at the 

 temperature of 160 in aPapin's digester. This fluid was precipi- 

 tated by tannic, picric, and kinic acids, tincture of iodine, and 

 corrosive sublimate, but not by other reagents which commonly 

 precipitate chondrin. We cannot conclude with Schultze, from 

 these reactions, that the elastic tissue yields gelatin ; for it would, 

 in our opinion, be attaching too wide a significance to the idea of 

 gelatin, were we to apply this name to substances which do not 

 gelatinise, and merely yield precipitates with tannic acid and 

 similar substances, which precipitate a great number of organic 

 matters, and in other respect, exhibit only negative properties. In 

 that case, we should be compelled to include Mulder's tritoxide of 

 protein under the head of gelatin, and to denominate as gelatige- 

 nous numerous other matters, such even as albumen, since when 

 boiled in water under high pressure and at a high temperature, 

 they yield substances which are soluble in water, although they do 

 not gelatinise. 



* Borichte dor k. sachs. Gesellsch. d, Wiss. 1849, S.91. 



t Fogg. Ann. Bd. 28, S. 311-313. 



t De tela elastica ; diss. inaug. Berol. 1836. 



Mulder's Vers. einer phys. Chem., S. 594 [or English Translation, p. 543]. 



II Ann. der Ch. u. Pharra. Bd. 71, S. 277-295. 



