NON-STRIATED MUSCLES. 573 



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/ 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. FiJRTH, 2 some on th 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. 

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

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

 creatinc, creatinine, hypoxanthine, taurine, inosite, glycogen, and lactic 

 acid have been found. The mineral constituents show the remarkable 

 fact that the sodium compounds exceed the potassium compounds. 

 According to SAIKI 3 magnesium does not occur to a greater extent 

 than calcium in the smooth muscles of the stomach or the bladder of pigs. 

 The same investigator found 801-811 p. m. water and 199-189 p. m. 

 solids in these muscles. 



HENZE found abundance of taurine in the muscles of Octopods, 5 p. m., but 

 no creatine, which, according to FREMY and VALENCIENNES/ occurs in v the muscles 

 of Cephalopods. He also found no glycogen and no paralactic acid, but, on the 

 contrary, small amounts of fermentation lactic acid. The muscles of Octopods 

 are richer in mineral bodies than the muscles of vetebrates, and are nearly twice 

 as rich in sulphur as these. 



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 Journ. of Biol. Chem., 4. 



4 Henze, ibid., 43; Fremy and Valenciennes, cited from Kiihne's Lehrbuch, p. 333. 



