STBIATED MUSCULAR FIBEE. 



407 



and, finally, the latter to a greater or less extent disappear, and give 

 place to areolar tissue and fat-cells. (Fig. 259.) 



Fig. 259. 



Fatty degeneration of the heart. A. Fibres taken from the columnae carnese of the mitral valves 

 of a woman aet. 30 ; the fatty degeneration was scarcely observable in the ventricle, where the fibres 

 still retained their stria. B. An extreme case of fatty degeneration, showing an entire replacement 

 of the myoline by oil globules, still retaining a linear arrangement. From the right ventricle of an 

 old gentleman who had Bright's disease of the kidney and pulmonary phthisis, and was affected 

 with fits during the last two years of his life. 



4. The condition of the fibres in emaciated muscles is unknown. 

 Bonders found them more slender in a frog which had fasted eight 

 months; which he attributed mainly to the removal of the muscular 

 fluid from between the fibrillae. 



5. Paleness of the muscles is common in dropsy, chlorosis, para- 

 lysis, lead-poisoning, old age, &c.; the coloring matter being, per- 

 haps, converted into the numerous brown and yellow granules 

 before mentioned as appearing within the myolemma. 



6. Softening often accompanies paleness. In the former, the fibres 

 exhibit no transverse strias nor fibrils ; and readily break up into 

 numerous particles, or even into a pultaceous mass. 



7. Muscular fibres ruptured in tetanus, present numerous nodular 

 enlargements, in which the transverse striae are very closely approx- 

 imated; and between them either rupture of the fibrillaa, or at least 

 a considerable stretching and disorganization of them. (Bowman?) 



8. Concretions sometimes exist in muscles. The state of the fibres 

 has not been investigated. 



9. True lone is also sometimes formed in muscles subjected to 

 prolonged exercise, as the deltoid and some others. The precise 

 changes in the fibres in this case also are unknown. 



10. Of parasites in muscles, the Cysticercus cellulosa, and the Tri- 

 china spiralis are to be mentioned. These are contained in distinct 

 cysts ; and which are situated between the fibres. 



11. Rokitanski found a new formation of the striated muscular 

 fibres in a tumor of the testis of a person eighteen years old; and 

 Virchow also once detected it in an ovarian tumor. 



