70 CONTRACTILE FIBRE-CELLS. 



work these analyses of my own, i will here limit myself to 

 an enumeration of the mean results, merely for the purpose of 

 comparison with the fibrin of the blood and that of the animal 

 muscles; there were found on an average 53'84-g- of carbon, 7'30 

 of hydrogen, 15*81^ of nitrogen, and 1 *09^ of sulphur. 



This substance further corresponds with the protein-body 

 extracted from striped muscle in being perfectly insoluble in nitre- 

 water (containing 6^ of KO. NO 5 ), as well as in carbonate of 

 potash. Although the above-mentioned micro-chemical reactions 

 demonstrated this point with tolerable certainty, the following 

 experiments were additionally made. The muscular coat of the 

 stomach was reduced to fine shreds and rinsed in water as long as 

 any coagulable substance continued to dissolve ; a portion of the 

 rinsed mass was then digested for an hour in a solution of 1 part 

 of carbonate of potash in 10 parts of water; the filtered fluid 

 showed only traces of a dissolved protein-body. Another portion 

 of the muscular coat, which had been freed from albumen, was 

 digested for two days in the above-mentioned nitre-water at a tem- 

 perature of 37; at the end of that period there was not a trace of 

 any substance coagulable by heat or acetic acid. 



As this substance appears, according to the present state of our 

 knowledge, to be altogether peculiar to contractile fibre, as it differs 

 essentially from the fibrin of the blood, and lastly, as it does not 

 merely occur in the true muscles, we have thought that it would be 

 desirable to distinguish it from ordinary fibrin by some peculiar 

 designation, and we have suggested as appropriate the name 

 of syntonin (from cvvTeiveiv). [The chemical and physiologi- 

 cal characters of syntonin are described in the Appendix. 



G. E. D.] 



It is probably a very significant fact, that the more active organs 

 of the animal body are bathed in a fluid which differs very essen- 

 tially fron an ordinary transudation from the blood, or from the 

 blood-plasma itself. Berzelius long since directed attention to the 

 muscular fluid, and Liebig^s admirable investigation of this subject 

 is well known. According to Liebig^s discoveries, a fluid differing 

 in every respect from the plasma of the blood surrounds the fibres 

 of the striped muscles ; and the same is the case with the fibre-cells 

 of the smooth muscles. M. S. Schultze* found, on examining the 

 middle coat of the arteries, that it was permeated by a fluid very 

 rich in casein. He found in 100 parts of the well-dried annular 

 coat of the thoracic aorta from 17*4 to 23*1^ of soluble consti- 

 * Ann. d. Ch. u. Pharm. Bd. 71, S. 277-293. 



