582 MUSCLES. 



ing of food. As stated in Chapter VII, work, starvation, and lack of 

 carbohydrates in the food cause the glycogen to disappear earlier from 

 the liver than from the muscles. 



The sugar of the muscles, of which only traces occur in the living mus- 

 cle, and which is probably formed after the death of the muscle from 

 the muscle-glycogen, is, according to the investigations of PANQRMOFF, in 

 part glucose, but consists principally of maltose (OSBORNE and ZOBEL l ) 

 with some dextrin. , 



Lactic Acids. Of the oxypropionic acids with the formula CsHeOa 

 there is one, ethylene lactic acid, CH 2 (OH).CH 2 .COOH, which is not 

 found in the animal body, and therefore has no physiological chemical 

 interest. 



CH 3 

 Indeed only a-oxypropionic acid or ethylidene lactic acid, CH(OH), of 



COOH 



which there are two physical isomers, namely, the dextrorotatory PAR- 

 ALACTIC or SARCOLACTIC ACID, and the LEVOLACTIC ACID obtained by 

 SCHARDINGER by the fermentation of cane-sugar by means of a special 

 bacillus. This levolactic acid, which is formed by the typhoid bacillus 

 and various vibriones 2 need not be discussed here, and we will only treat 

 here the d-Z-lactic acid (the inactive fermentation lactic acid) and the 

 dextrolactic acid. 



The fermentation lactic acid, which is formed from lactose by allow- 

 ing milk to sour, and by the acid fermentation of other carbohydrates, 

 is considered to exist in small quantities in the muscles (HEINTZ), in the 

 gray matter of the brain (GSCHEIDLEN), and in diabetic urine. The 

 occurrence of fermentation lactic acid in the brain and other organs 

 is still very improbable and has been disputed by MORI Y A. 3 During 

 digestion this acid is also found in the contents of the stomach and intestine, 

 and as alkali lactate in the chyle. The paralactic acid, is at all events, 

 the true acid of meat extracts, and this alone has been found with certainty 

 in dead muscle. The lactic acid which is found in the brain, spleen, 

 lymphatic glands, thymus, thyroid gland, blood, bile, pathological 

 transudates, osteomalacial bones, in perspiration in puerperal fever, 

 in the urine after fatiguing marches, in acute yellow atrophy of the liver, 



1 Panormoff, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 17; Osborne and Zobel, Journ. of Physiol., 

 29. 



2 See Schardinger, Monatshefte f. Chem., 11 ; Blachstein, Arch, des sciences biol. 

 de St. Petersbourg, 1, 199; Kuprianow, Arch. f. Hygiene, 19, and Gosio, ibid., 21; 

 Herzog and Horth, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 60. 



3 Heintz, Annal. d. Chem. u. Pharm., 157, and Gscheidlen, Pfliiger's Arch., 8, 

 171; Moriya, Zeitschrift f. physiol. Chem.. 43. 



