250 



SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



ing the 160-180 fasciculi of this muscle, contains, according to Reichert, 

 7-10 fibres, and ultimately, by continual division, forms 290-340 



Fig. 104. 



terminal filaments, so that there is more than one for each muscular 

 fasciculus. 



85. Chemical and Physical Relations of the Muscles. In 100 

 parts of fresh beef there are contained, according to Bibra, 72-56 

 74-45 parts of water. The solid constituents (25-55-27-44) in a man 

 59 years old, were composed of a residue insoluble in boiling water, 

 alcohol, and ether, 16-83; soluble albumen and coloring matter, 1-75; 

 substance affording gelatine, 1-92; extractive matter and salts, 2-80; 

 fat, 4-24. The fat is derived chiefly from the blood, the fat-cells in the 

 muscles and their nerves, and in part perhaps from the muscular fibres 

 themselves, in which microscopic fat granules are, at all events occasion- 

 ally, evident. The gelatine is derived from the perimysium, in smaller 

 proportion also from the vessels and neurilemma; none, on the contrary, 

 is afforded by the sarcolemma, which is still apparent in muscles com- 

 pletely exhausted by boiling, whence (in opposition to Reichert) it is 

 evident that the sarcolemma should not be referred to connective tissue. 

 The inorganic salts and the albumen are principally afforded, probably 

 by the muscular fibre itself, as are also and above all the salts described 

 by Liebig and Scherer in the juice of muscles, of the lactic, acetic, bu- 

 tyric, and formic acids, the free lactic acid, the creatin and creatinin, 



FIG. 104. Divisions of nerve-fibres, in a small twig from the cutaneous thoracic muscle 

 of the Frog; magnified 350 diameters: a, bifurcation; b, threefold division. 



