SOLID PARTS OF ANIMALS. 



common salt is usually employed. Several of the metalline salts 

 combine with flesh precisely as they do with fibrin. This is the 

 case with the salts of iron and mercury. It has long been known 

 that a very small quantity of corrosive sublimate preserves ana- 

 tomical preparations from putrefaction. 



Muscles, it is well-known, are the organs by means of which 

 all the different motions of the living body are performed. 

 When a muscle acts the muscular fibres are shortened, while the 

 belly of the muscle swells out, and the whole muscle occupies a 

 greater bulk than before. Sir Anthony Carlisle introduced a 

 man's arm within a glass cylinder. It was duly closed at the 

 end which embraced the head of the humerus. The vessel being 

 inverted, water at 97 was poured in so as to fill it. A ground 

 brass plate closed the lower aperture, and a barometer tube com- 

 municated with the water at the bottom of the cylinder. This 

 apparatus, including the arm, was again inverted, so that the ba- 

 rometer tube became a gage, and no air was suffered to remain 

 in the apparatus. On the slightest action with the muscles of 

 the hand or forearm, the water ascended rapidly in the gage, 

 making librations of six and eight inches length in the barome- 

 ter tube, on each contraction and relaxation of the muscles.* 



When muscles are strongly contracted their sensibility to pain 

 is nearly destroyed. This means is employed by jugglers for the 

 purpose of suffering pins to be thrust into the calf of the leg and 

 other muscular parts with impunity.f When fish are subjected 

 to the process called crimping, the specific gravity of the mus- 

 cles is increased. Crimping consists in cutting the muscles across 

 at various distances before their vitality is destroyed. The sea- 

 fish destined* for crimping are usually struck on the head when 

 caught, which, it is said, protracts the term of this capability ; 

 and the muscles which retain this property longest are those of 

 the head. Many transverse sections of the muscles being made, 

 and the fish immersed in cold water, the contractions called 

 crimping take place in about five minutes ; but if the mass be 

 large, it often requires thirty minutes to complete the process. 

 Sir Anthony Carlisle took two flounders, each weighing 1926 

 grains, the one being in a state for crimping, the other dead and 

 rigid. They were both immersed in water of 48 tempera- 



* Phil. Trans. 1805, p. 22. f Ibid. p. 27. 



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