84 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1714. 



unbent position ; and still more, when the part to which they belong is bowed 

 together, or brought nearer ; but when the muscle is extended, and its antago- 

 nist acts, there is not the least wrinkle observable in these fibrils. However, 

 all the little inequalities in these fibrils must not be taken for those corruga- 

 tions, since many of them are only the particles torn off from the membranes 

 which encompass the fibrils. 



Fig. 15, represents 4 small fibres of a piece of whale's flesh, procured 2 years 

 since : this 1 caused to be drawn, to show the difference. By the two figures 

 14 and 15, it is visible that the diameters of the fibres are as thick again in one 

 as in the other, therefore the fibres must be four times as large in fig. 14 as in 

 iig. 15. Now each flesh fibre being composed of a great many smaller fibrils, 

 we may imagine each of these inclosed fibres likewise to consist of others of 

 the like nature. 



I have again viewed several small fibres of ox-flesh, and observed, that each 

 of the fibrils in them was encompassed with a thin membrane. But I cannot 

 show these membranes so clearly to other persons in cow's flesh as in whale's 

 flesh, because the parts of the former are of a much more compact and close 

 texture, than that of the whale, from whence they do not shrink so much in 

 drying. 



Several Observations on the Frame and Texture of the Muscles. By Mr. Muys 

 of Franequer. Extracted from the Journal Litteraire for January and February 

 1714. N°339, p. 59. 



Mr. Muys observed, that the fleshy fibres of the muscles are composed of 

 other smaller fibres, which he calls fibrils ; that these fibrils are of the size of 

 a slender hair, and that 500 or 600 of them, may be counted in one fleshy 

 fibre, whose diameter is no more than a 24th part of an inch. That each of 

 these fibrils is also composed of more than 300 small transparent tubuli, but so 

 slender, that if a blood globule, which, according to Mr. Leuwenhoeck, is but 

 the millionth part of a grain of sand, were divided into 24 parts, one of these 

 could hardly pass through these small tubes. 



He has shown, that though the fleshy fibres of the muscles are joined to the 

 tendons and tendinous membrane of a muscle, yet these tendinous fibres are 

 not a continuation of the fleshy ones, as most anatomists suppose, which he 

 proves thus: if by means of a wooden knife, or only by pulling it, you separate 

 the fleshy fibres from the tendon, the end of the tendon to which they were 

 joined will remain smooth and even, and not rugged. 



Having made several injections of warm water into the crural artery of a lamb 

 of a year old, all the fleshy fibres became entirely white. He then injected a 



