462 
MR. BOWMAN ON THE MINUTE STRUCTURE AND 
years called the attention of physiologists, and thus their real structure eluded him*. 
Fontana was the first to give what has seemed to me to be the correct explanation 
of their nature, where he says, “Les fils charnus primitifs (prim, fibrillse) sont des 
cylindres solides, egaux entr’eux, et marques visiblement a distances egales de petits 
signes, coniine d’autant de petits diaphragms ou rides. Je n’ai pu appercevoir dans ces 
fils une marche vraiment ondee et il m’a paru que les petites taches curvilignes du 
faisceau primitif etaient formees par les petits signes ou diaphragms des fils charnus 
primitifsf.” 
It is difficult to conceive how the strise should have escaped the observation of Sir 
E. Home and Mr. Bauer, when investigating the structure of muscle, but such seems 
to be the fact. In the last ten or fifteen years, during which so much more attention 
has been given to microscopical researches, various observers have noticed them, and 
attempted to explain their composition. Among these, Dr. Hodgkin and Mr. Lister 
describe them, but offer no opinion as to their nature. Dr. Schwann adduces several 
reasons for thinking them formed by the lateral parallelism of the beads of conti- 
guous fibrillse Muller adopts this explanation, and M. Lauth holds the same 
view§. Mr. Skey, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1 837, advances a directly op- 
posite opinion. He says that the fibres (primitive fasciculi) are in reality tubes, con- 
taining a soluble gluten, round which the fibrillse are arranged in sets ; that these are 
finally surrounded, bound together, and retained in their position by the transverse 
strise, “ which are the woof to the warp of the longitudinal filaments, but instead of 
being interlaced with them, they form circles around, and attached to the most promi- 
nent part of the longitudinal filaments, to which they are intimately united.” (p.375.) 
Lastly, so lately as 1839, M. Mandl, speaking of the primitive fibrillse, avows the 
following opinion : “ Les fibres elementaires sont reunies dans une gaine qui est 
striee a sa surface, et l’ensemble de cette gaine et des fibres elementaires constitue 
les faisceaux elementaires, qui sont les parties elementaires des muscles. Voici le re- 
sultat de nos recherches sur la structure de cette gaine. Les lignes noires (dark 
transverse strise) ne sont, selon nous, que les bords des lignes blanches (light trans- 
verse strise) : ces lignes blanches sont les filets du tissu cellulaire qui enveloppe sous 
forme de spirale les fibres elementaires, et forme de cette maniere la gaine ||.” 
It will at once appear from the preceding statements, that the nature of these 
* “ Quod causam istarum rugarum quae turn in fasciculis fibrarum muscularium (Lacerti), turn in fibris mus- 
cularibus ipsis (prim, fascic.), et filis cameis (prim, fibrillae) observantur concernit, id jam in principio hujus 
capitis attigi, ubi dixi, a filis cellulosis, arteriis, venis, et nervis, fasciculos fibrarum muscularium decussari, et 
alternatim saepe ita stringi, ut in serpentinos flexus agantur ; idem fit in fibris muscularibus et filis carneis, 
quae simili prorsus modo a filis cellulosis, vasculosis, et nerveis percurruntur et decussantur.” — Prochaska, 
De Carne Musculari, Viennae, 1778, cap. iv. sect. i. 
t Traitd sur le Venin de la Vipere, p. 229. 
1 Muller’s Phys. as translated by Baly, p. 880. 
§ L’lnstitut, No. 70, 1834. 
|| Traite pratique du Microscope, Paris, 1839, p. 74-5. 
