152 ELECTRO-PHYSIOLOGY CHAP. 



loses its conductivity in proportion, the play of waves finally ceases 

 altogether, although the persistent contraction still remains at the 

 point of excitation, and was by Schiff regarded as the specific 

 manifestation of muscular excitability, and opposed as the " neuro- 

 muscular " twitch to the " idio-muscular " contraction. This local 

 swelling appears most plainly on mechanically excitating (by a 

 blow, or stroking with a blunt-pointed instrument) the moribund 

 muscle of a dead animal, which no longer twitches with electrical 

 stimulation. " The swelling appears slowly, and is delayed in 

 proportion with the exhaustion of the muscle and length of time 

 elapsed since the death of the animal." When the swelling has 

 reached its maximum it maintains it for a longer or shorter time, 

 perhaps several minutes, and then diminishes again comparatively 

 slowly. In this way, especially when stroking at right angles to 

 the direction of the fibres, it is possible to write and draw with a 

 hard object on the upper surface of a suitable muscle. 



Distinct idio-muscular swellings can seldom be provoked in 

 fresh frog's muscle. The sartorius from a half-dried leg works 

 better according to Hermann (9). " If such a muscle is stretched 

 out on cork at a certain stage, every contact of a needle, especially 

 with gentle cross -pressure, will produce a local swelling, which 

 persists for some time. The same reaction is even better shown 

 on cooled frog's muscle, in which both mechanical and electrical 

 excitation produce a long -sustained contraction at the point 

 stimulated. The contractile, palatine organs (containing striated 

 muscle -fibres) of certain fishes (cyprinoids, tench) also exhibit 

 well-marked, idio-muscular swellings. 



These observations of Schiff, which may be compared with the 

 older experiments of Bennet Dowler (Hermann's Handb. i. 1, p. 

 45, note) on the muscles of the human subject immediately after 

 -death, were subsequently confirmed, and extended in several 

 directions, though the original interpretation of Schiff to which 

 Kiihne also subscribed later to the effect that the phenomena 

 were merely the consequences of diminished excitability in the 

 muscle, appeared somewhat dubious. The observations mainly 

 refer to the appearance of the " idio-muscular " swelling, and the 

 slowly- transmit ted wave of contraction that proceeds from it in 

 the muscles of the living human subject. After E. H. Weber, 

 Ed. 'Weber, and Funke had exhibited upon themselves, by hitting 

 the biceps or gastrocnemius with a blunt surface, idio-muscular 



