10 NECROSIS or TISSl'ES. 



muscle. Our ouly data on this subject are those given by 

 Heidenhain.* He describes certain plicnomena of coagulation in 

 the fibres of unstriped muscle, occurring from sixteen to eighteen 

 hours after death. The cells first assume a granular or sandy 

 aspect, due to the presence of a countless number of minute, dark, 

 punctiform bodies throughout tlieir contents. These molecules, 

 "Nvhich are too small to be measured, unite to form shaded figures 

 of an irregular outline, ^vhicli in their turn coalesce to form 

 coarser, highly refracting, elongated, straight or curved particles, 

 embedded in a residual substance of greater transparency. These 

 particles ai'e sometimes irregularly distributed throughout the 

 cell, sometimes disposed with tolerable regularity in transverse 

 lines equidistant from one another, giving the cell a coarsely 

 striated apj)earance (fig. 1, ^>). I can confirm these statements 

 from obsen'ations of my own. This mode of decomposition may 

 constantly be observed in cases of so-called softening of the 

 stomach ; a tumefaction and solution of the gastric walls, formerly 

 regarded as due to disease, but which is now known to be of 

 post-mortem origin {Elsdsser — fig. 1, h). The altered mus- 

 cular fibres are farther destined to be converted into a viscid, 

 mucoid substance, in which, however, the dot-like bodies de- 

 scribed above lono; continue to be visible. 



§ 15. "The phenomena of necrotisation in the fibres of striped 

 MUSCLE are far more complex than those which have just been 

 described. This is a fit occasion for discussing the phenomena of 

 rio-or mortis in o^reater detail. From twelve to fourteen hours 

 after death, all bodies, with the exception of those killed b}' charcoal 

 fumes, sulphuretted hydrogen, or lightning, or which have suc- 

 cumbed to putrid fevers and the exhaustion of lingering maladies, 

 pass into a peculiar state of rigidity which lasts for about twenty- 

 four hours, and which resolves itself, on closer investigation, into 

 a well-marked shortening, thickening, and stiffening of the 

 voluntary muscles. We find a like state of the muscles in limbs 

 whose blood supply has been very suddenly cut off"; and we can 

 induce it experimentally, not only by cutting off" the supply of 

 blood, but also by the application of heat and cold, by over- 



* Heidenhaiu, " Coagulation of the Contents of the Contractile Fibre 

 Cells after Death." (Researches in the Physiological Institute at Breslau, 

 i. 199.) 



