602 , MUSCLES. 



experimenters prepared a neutral plasma from the gizzard of geese, 

 according to v. FURTH'S method. This plasma coagulated spon- 

 taneously at the temperature of the room, although slowly. It con- 

 tained a globulin, precipitated by dialysis, which coagulated at 55-60 

 C. and also showed certain similarities with KUHNE'S myosin. A spon- 

 taneously coagulating albumin, which differed from myogen (v. FURTH) 

 by coagulating at 45-50 C., and which passes by spontaneous coagula- 

 tion into the coagulated modification without a soluble intermediate 

 product, exists in still greater quantities in this plasma. Alkali albu- 

 minates do not occur, but a nucleoprotein is found, which exists in about 

 five times the quantity as compared with striated muscles. Nucleon 

 is, according to PANELLA, 1 a normal constituent of smooth muscles and 

 occurs in larger amounts than in striated muscles. 



Recent investigations of BOTTAZZI and CAPPELLI, VincENT and 

 LEWIS, VINCENT and v. FuRTH, 2 some on the muscles of warm-blooded 

 and some on those of lower animals, have led to dissimilar results, but 

 they substantiate, as a whole, the observations of MUNK and VELICHI. 

 Besides the nucleoproteins the smooth muscles contain two bodies 

 corresponding in coagulation temperature to musculin and myosinogen 

 (myogen, v. FURTH), but they are not identical therewith. Hcemo- 

 globin occurs in the smooth muscles of certain animals, but is absent in 

 others. In the smooth muscles (in certain varieties of animals) creatine, 

 creatinine, hypoxanthine, taurine, inosite, glycogen, and lactic acid have 

 been found. Purine bases, especially xanthine also occur accord- 

 ing to BUGLIA and COSTANTINO but the quantity is smaller than in 

 striated muscles. This applies at least to the total quantity while the 

 amount of free purine bases, according to ScAFFiDi, 3 in the smooth 

 muscles is greater than in the striated muscles. Creatine and carnosine 

 are less abundant in the smooth muscles than in the striated muscles. 

 The first are richer in diamino-acid than in monamino-acid-nitrogen 

 than the striated muscles (BUGLIA and COSTANTINO) . 



In regard to the mineral constituents, COSTANTINO has found that 

 the smooth muscles are richer in chlorine, namely 0.84-1.3 p. m., than 

 the striated muscles with 0.25-0.46 p. m. . According to older state- 

 ments the sodium compounds exceed the potassium compounds but 

 COSTANTINO 4 could not substantiate this. He found, namely, no general 



1 Maly's Jahresber., 34. 



2 Bottazzi, Centralbl. f. Physiol., 15; Vincent and Lewis, Journ. of Physiol., 26; 

 Vincent, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 34; v. Fiirth, ibid., 31. 



3 Scaffidi, Bioch. Zeitschr. 33; Buglia and Costantino, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem. 

 83, 81 and 82. 



4 Costantino, Bioch. Zeitschr. 37; See also Meigs and Ryan, Journ. of biol. 

 Chem. 11. 



