16 MOTION. 



oughly softened, and the muscle fibers are easily separated. 

 Thorough cooking, especially slow boiling, will soften the con- 

 nective tissue, and may render palatable meat that, cooked 

 otherwise, would be exceedingly tough on account of the large 

 amount of connective tissue. 



A good way to represent the structure of muscle is to take 

 a number of pieces of regl cord to represent the muscle fibers. 

 Wrap each in white tissue paper a little longer than the 

 thread ; this represents the individual fiber with its sheath. 

 Lay a number of these side by side; wrap all in a common 

 sheath ; let the tissue paper project beyond the threads, and 

 here compress it into a compact cylinder; this last corre- 

 sponds to the tendon. Instead of one long fiber continuous 

 through the length of the muscle, there are many short fibers. 

 (See Fig. 4.) 



The connective tissue forms a framework for all the tissues 

 of the body ; and if their working cells were removed, the con- 

 nective tissue would remain like the framework of a squeezed 

 lemon, or like the skeleton of a sponge after its soft tissues 

 are removed, and showing more or less completely the form 

 of the part. Connective tissue, therefore, may be called the 

 skeleton of the soft tissues. Muscle consists, then, essentially 

 of a collection of soft, transparent tubes, filled with the semi- 

 fluid muscular fibers. By scraping the surface of a steak with 

 a dull knife the muscular substance may be obtained, leaving 

 the connective tissue. This is a good way to get the nutritious 

 part of beef for an invalid. 



Importance of Muscles. The muscles make up nearly 

 half of the weight of the body. The different materials of 

 which the body is built up are called Tissues. Thus we find 

 muscular tissue, bony tissue, nervous tissue, etc. Now, the 

 muscles weigh nearly as much as all the other organs of 

 the body taken together. This fact, of itself, should lead 



