100 
Dr. Beale, on Sarcolemma, 
glycerine, fine fibres will be found projecting from every 
part of its external surface. And, as for example, in the 
case of many muscles of the frog, where the elementary mus- 
cular fibres can be separated from one another without 
being actually torn apart^ and in many of the old muscles of 
insects, it is seen that the sarcolemma is continuous with the 
intermuscular connective tissue. In fact, the membranous 
sarcolemma seems to pass into the slightly fibrous con- 
nective tissue. And in those instances in which there is an 
absence of true sarcolemma investing the muscular fibres, 
there exists, in all cases, delicate connective tissue^ which 
forms a bond of union between them, and in which, it may 
be said, the muscular fibres are imbedded. If such fine muscu- 
lar fibres were to waste, a small amount of connective tissue 
would remain, and this would be added to that which 
already exists. And^ in certain cases of disease^ in which the 
contractile material becomes altered and converted into a 
form of connective tissue, this latter substance is continuous 
in structure with the sarcolemma. This, taken in considera- 
tion with many other facts tending to the same conclusion, 
leads me to regard the contractile tissue of muscle as consist- 
ing of a special contractile material which is imbedded in 
a transparent indifferent tissue, which increases in amount as 
the contractile material wastes. 
The intermuscular connective tissue is not, in any case, 
developed as a framework for the support of the muscular 
tissue, as is generally maintained ; for neither is its firmness 
or its amount the greatest in those cases in which the mus- 
cular tissue is most largely developed, — or at the time when 
the muscular tissue is softest, and therefore in greatest need 
of support, as at an earlier period of development, — for at 
this time there is really no connective tissue ; but when the 
muscular tissue wastes or degenerates, in old age, when its 
action is feeble, and in cases in which, from various causes, 
the [contractility of the muscle is impaired, the amount of 
intermuscular connective tissue attains its maximum. In 
fact, as in wasting of glands, such as the liver and kidney, 
the secreting structure comes at last to be represented by 
connective tissue, and its nuclei (masses of germinal mat- 
ter) by connective-tissue-corpuscles, — so these bodies and the 
connective tissue between them and continuous with them 
are all that remain of what was once muscle. 
In considering the mode of formation of the sarcolemma, it 
must also be remembered that this structure is continuous 
with connective tissue at the point where the muscle joins 
the tendon ; in fact^ the sarcolemma and the intermuscular 
