462 



experiment it was found that an interruption to the continuance of the 

 current, even for a few seconds, is sufficient to destroy the whole of 

 the product which had been the result of the previous long-continued 

 action j the spongy ammoniacal amalgam being instantly decomposed, 

 and the ammonia formed being dissolved in the surrounding fluid. 



February 9, 1837. 

 FRANCIS BAILY, Esq., V. P. and Treasurer, in the Chair. 



Edmund Halswell, Esq., who, at the last Anniversary, had ceased 

 to be a Fellow, from the non-payment of his annual contribution, was, 

 at this meeting, readmitted by ballot into the Society, agreeably to 

 the provision of the statutes. 



A paper was read, in part, entitled, " On the Elementary Struc- 

 ture of Muscular Fibre of Animal and Organic Life." By Frederick 

 Skey, Esq., Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Com- 

 municated by John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. 



February 16, 1837. 



The Right Honourable the EARL OF BURLINGTON, V.P., in 



the Chair. 



The reading of a paper entitled, On the Elementary Structure of 

 Muscular Fibre of Animal and Organic Life." By Frederick Skey, 

 Esq., Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Commu- 

 nicated by John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. , was resumed and concluded. 



The author concludes, from his microscopic examinations of the 

 structure of muscular fibres, that those subservient to the functions of 

 animal life have, in man, an average diameter of one 400dthof an inch, 

 and are surrounded by transverse circular striae varying in thickness, 

 and in the number contained in a given space. He describes these 

 striae as constituted by actual elevations on the surface of the fibre, 

 with intermediate depressions, considerably narrower than the dia- 

 meter of a globule of the blood. Each of these muscular fibres, of 

 which the diameter is one 400dth of an inch, is divisible into bands or 

 fibrillar, each of which is again subdivisible into about one hundred 

 tubular filaments, arranged parallel to one another, in a longitudinal 

 direction, around the axis of the tubular fibre which they compose., and 

 which contains in its centre a soluble gluten. The partial separation 

 of the fibrillae gives rise to the appearance of broken or interrupted 

 circular striae, which are occasionally seen. The diameter of each fila- 

 ment is one 1 6,000dth of an inch, or about a third part of that of a 

 globule of the blood. On the other hand, the muscles of organic life 

 are composed, not of fibres similar to those above described, but of 

 filaments only ; these filaments being interwoven with each other in 

 irregularly disposed lines of various thickness ; having for the most 

 part a longitudinal direction, but forming a kind of untraceable net- 

 work. They are readily distinguishable from tendinous fibres, by the 



