MUSCULAR CONTRACTILITY. 4:67 



teresting experiments, by Dr. Brown-Sequard. The first 

 observations were made upon two men executed by decapi- 

 tation. Thirteen hours and ten minutes after death, when 

 the muscular irritability had entirely disappeared and was 

 succeeded by cadaveric rigidity, a quantity of fresh, defi- 

 brinated, venous blood, from the human subject, was in- 

 jected into the arteries of one hand, and returned by the 

 veins. It was afterward reinjected several times during a 

 period of thirty-five minutes. The whole time occupied in 

 the different injections was from ten to fifteen minutes. Ten 

 minutes after the last injection, and about fourteen hours 

 after death, the irritability was found to have returned, in a 

 marked degree, in twelve muscles of the hand. There were 

 only two muscles out of the nineteen in which the irritability 

 could not be demonstrated. Three hours after, the irritability 

 still existed, but it disappeared a quarter of an hour later. 

 The second observation was essentially the same, except that 

 defibrinated blood from the dog was used, and the experiments 

 were made upon the muscles of the arm. The irritability 

 was restored in all of the muscles, and was present, the 

 cadaveric rigidity having disappeared, twenty hours after 

 decapitation. 1 



These experiments are exceedingly interesting, as showing 

 the dependence of irritability upon certain of the processes 

 of nutrition, which are probably restored, though temporarily 

 and imperfectly, by the injection of fresh blood. They are 

 also important in connection with the cadaveric rigidity of 

 muscles, a condition which follows the loss of their so-called 

 vital properties. The subject of cadaveric rigidity will be 

 fully discussed as one of the phenomena of death. 



1 BROWX-SEQUARD, Proprietes physiologiques et les usages du sang rouge et du 

 sang noir. Journal de la physiologic, Paris, 1858, tome i., p. 108, et seg. 



