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IX. Electro-Physiological Mesearches. Physical and Chemical Phenomena of Muscmlar 
Contraction. — Tenth Series. Part I. By Carlo Matteucci, Professor in the Uni- 
versity of Pisa. Communicated hy Michael Faraday, Esq.., B.C.L.., F.R.S. &c. 
Eeceiyed June 12, — Bead June 19, 1856. 
The present Series of these Eesearches is divided into two parts : in the first I propose to 
treat of the development of heat, electricity, and vis viva, by the muscle in a state of 
contraction ; in the second, of the chemical changes produced by the muscle in contrac- 
tion on the ah’. 
PART THE EIEST. 
^ 1. That the temperature of an animal is raised by muscular exercise, is a fact gene- 
rally admitted and proved by common experience. M. Becquerel having introduced 
the point of a thermo-electric pile into a muscle of the human body, found an increase 
of temperature during contraction which amoimted to a degree Centigrade : Mr. Newport 
also discovered a remarkable increase in the temperature of insects while in movement. 
M. Becquerel attributed this increase of temperature in muscles during contraction to 
the greater activity of sanguineous cu’culation which apparently takes place in a muscle 
in that state. In support of this interpretation, M. Becquerel showed, that, by com- 
pressing one of the large arteries distributed in a muscle under experiment, an immediate 
decrease of temperature takes place in that muscle. M. Bernard discovered an increase 
of heat in one of the ears of a rabbit or dog after having cut the cervical ganglion Con- 
nected with the nervous filament of that ear : this remarkable fact is also associated in 
some unknown manner, depending on the peculiar action of the ganglionic system, with 
a more rapid capillary circulation of blood in the ear in which the temperature is highest. 
It remained therefore still to be proved by experiment whether an increase of tempera- 
ture is produced by the act of contraction in a muscle which is separated from the body, 
and as far as possible is devoid of blood, in which consequently sanguineous circulation 
is extinct. The experiment was easily made and the result not doubtful. 
I employed for this purpose two thermometers such as those used in M. Regnault’s 
hygrometer, and constructed by M. Fastre. The cylindrical bulb of these thermometers 
is very small, and by means of a telescope I could read distinctly variations of -^oth of a 
degree Centigrade. I had two cylindrical wide-mouthed glass bottles of about 100 cub. 
cent., provided with good cork stoppers. One of these corks was traversed by two thick 
copper wires, pointed at the extremities, and bent round horizontally parallel with each 
other, so as to leave an interval of 10 to 12 millimetres between them : the other cork was 
furnished with five hooks. A hole was bored through the middle of these corks, through 
MDCCCLVII. T 
