654 
DR. T. L. BRUNTON AND MR. W. PYE ON THE ACTION 
there was seen a mixture of granular and fibrous material, with a large quantity of oil- 
globules and flat crystals, and when treated with ether these were completely removed. 
Effect on the Lifting-power of Muscle. 
Experiment XLVIII. 
The lifting-power of a frog’s gastrocnemius which had been placed in a 3 -^Q solution 
of casca was compared with that of a similar preparation placed in salt solution, by 
attaching the one muscle as quickly as possible after the other to an apparatus for 
estimating their lifting-power connected with a revolving drum. The irritations were 
made with electrodes connected with a Leclanche’s battery. 
The results of our first experiments appeared to show that the drug possesses a sti- 
mulating action on the lifting-power of muscle ; but on repeating the experiment this 
result was not confirmed — the conclusion we drew from the whole series of experiments 
being that muscles which had been immersed in casca and salt solution respectively 
possessed nearly the same lifting-power. 
Effect on Muscle-curves. 
Experiments XLIX., L. 
Two frogs were injected with casca, and when they seemed dead, nerve-muscle pre- 
parations were made of the gastrocnemii. In Experiment XLIX. the preparation was 
attached to a Fick’s pendulum myograph and a tracing taken. In Experiment L. the 
nerve muscle was made to trace on a revolving cylinder : the curves obtained in these 
experiments are evidently normal. 
In Experiment LI. the action on the sensibility to electrical stimuli of muscle and 
motor nerves was tried, also with completely negative results, by making two nerve- 
muscle preparations of a frog’s gastrocnemii, and immersing one in casca solution, the 
other in salt solution. The sensibility of the two preparations was then tested by 
various strengths of a Du Bois Beymond’s coil connected with a Leclanche’s battery. 
The two muscles responded quite similarly. 
BemarJcs on the Action of Casca on Muscle. 
1. When applied to fresh muscular fibre no change is observed in its histological 
details. 
2. In addition to the absence of the development of Bacteria which is noticed when 
muscular tissue is placed in a watery solution of the alcoholic extract, and which has 
already been remarked upon, the structural changes which the muscular tissue under- 
goes appear to consist in a fatty metamorphosis, which at first simulates very closely that 
of ordinary fatty degeneration, while the later appearances resemble those of the more 
complete fatty changes which go on after the death of a tissue, large oil-globules and 
abundant crystals of the fatty acids being everywhere found. 
3. It does not diminish the lifting-power of muscle in a nerve-muscle preparation, nor 
