WATER ABSORPTION BY MUSCLES AND SOAPS 515 



In regard to the effect of acids, 0.7 per cent. NaCl solu- 

 tions are more like CaCl 2 solutions. As I have shown in my 

 earlier papers, a muscle absorbs 6 to 8 per cent, of its weight 

 of water when immersed for eighteen hours in a 0.7 per cent. 

 NaCl solution. If 10 c.c. of one-tenth normal HNO ~ solution 



o 



are added to 100 c.c. of the NaCl solution, the muscle 

 increases about 40 per cent, in weight in the same time. 



Ill 



When a muscle is immersed in a salt solution of a greater 

 concentration than 0.7 per cent., it loses water in such a 

 solution during the first hour or hours. If, however, it 

 remains in such hypertonic solutions for some time, it steadily 

 increases in weight, and this the more the greater the con- 

 centration (within certain limits) of the solution in which it 

 is immersed. Table III illustrates this paradoxical behavior. 

 The row of figures on the left gives the concentration ; that 

 on the right, the increase in weight of the muscle expressed 

 in per cent, of the original weight of the muscle. The 

 experiment lasted twenty-four hours. 



TABLE III 



Increase in weight of muscles 



Concentration of in twenty-four hours ex- 



the solution pressed in per cent, of their 



original weight 



1.40 - 6.7 



1.75 - 13.0 



2.10 17.7 



2.45 - 19.0 



2.80 23.8 



This paradoxical behavior of the muscles is dependent upon 

 secondary changes which take place in the muscles when 

 allowed to remain for a long time in the hypertonic sodium- 

 chloride solutions. I have discussed these changes at length 

 in my study of oedema. 1 I will only point out in passing 



iPfliigers Archiv, Vol. LXXI (1898). 



