650 
MUSCULAR ACTION. 
diagnosis of the case, and also because this is the very 
moment for the most successful and prompt treatment. I 
am summoned to a patient with a severe pain in the side ; he 
cannot breath without great pain, but there is no accompa- 
nying fever, the attack having come on, perhaps, within an 
hour or so ; but in the course of a day or two, or sometimes 
much less time, all the constitutional symptoms will have 
sprung up. There are other cases in which the fever is 
developed at the onset. It is very needful to bear in mind 
the former class of cases, — to remember that there may be 
all the local signs of inflammation without the general, if the 
attack has just come on. — Lancet. 
ON MUSCULAR ACTION. 
Mr.Skey enters into some interesting calculations, and 
details, in the course of his lectures delivered at the College 
of Surgeons, various experiments to prove that the muscles 
exert a “ controlling power,” which is thus explained : 
<c It will be admitted by all authorities, that the contractile 
power of muscular fibre is far greater than the ordinary and 
daily duties of the individual muscles appear to require, 
although it may be difficult to gauge this power with preci- 
cision. Reverting to the biceps, I think we may reasonably 
infer, that the power exercised by Nature in raising any 
given weight may be less than that employed by art, but 
cannot be greater. It is highly improbable that the forces 
resorted to in the experiment with the pulley, are employed 
to the best advantage, or that they can exactly represent the 
muscles themselves. We may infer, therefore, that the two 
muscles — the biceps and brachialis anticus — in supporting a 
w r eight of 561bs. in the hand, act with a force of from 5 to 
6 cwt., and that their action, when exerted on the unweighed 
hand, is equal to 20lbs. only. This is a large range of action, 
and demands, on all occasions in which these muscles are 
called into play, an exact adaptation of the requisite force, 
neither more nor less. But muscles, under disease, are liable 
to false applications of their power. These actions may be- 
come sudden, uncontrolled, and violent, as in the case of the 
fractured patella, or the ruptured tendo-Achillis. Let us 
suppose the larger power of the biceps to be applied, by the 
accident or spasm, or other deviation from health, to the 
lesser purpose, — what would be the result ? Surely, fractured 
bone or lacerated tendon or muscle ; for the bony organisation 
of the forearm is hardly competent to contend against a 
