232 Mayow 



would be required for its contraction, if that were 

 brought about by the inflation of its fibres, as has 

 already been noted some time ago by Lower. But 

 that in some contracted muscles we seem to feel a 

 tumour, does not, I think, come so much from their 

 swelling as from the movement of the belly of the 

 muscle, in its contraction, towards the fixed tendon, 

 so that the ascent of the belly of the muscle caused in 

 this way, raises a hand placed on the muscle and 

 simulates a tumour. 



Further, if some elastic matter contained within 

 the passages of the fibres inflated them in the way 

 described, how could it be that the fibres should in a 

 moment subside again, as happens in the glance of 

 the eye and in other iiastantaneous contractions of the 

 fibres ? For neither can I comprehend how that 

 elastic matter should in an instant inflate the fibres 

 and again extricate itself from their passages, for if an 

 easy way out of the fibres lay open to that rarefied 

 matter, it would pass quickly through the fibres and 

 not properly inflate them. 



Moreover, it is hardly likely that the animal spirits, 

 in the relaxation of the muscle, return from the fleshy 

 into the tendinous fibres, for it is not easy to conceive 

 what should regulate these spirits in their movement 

 of retreat. Besides as, according to the opinion of 

 the learned author, the animal spirits springing forth 

 into the fibres meet there particles of another kind 

 collected in sufficient abundance, and at once, as a 

 whole, mutually effervesce with them, it would seem 

 that these spirits would either be wholly dissipated, or 

 be changed into something else quite different from 

 what they were before ; so that they would become 

 altogether unfit for again exciting effervescence. 



Finally, as to the part of the muscle which primarily 



