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MINERAL BODIES. 587
diagonal bundles, and phosphoric acid. Next in amount we have sodium
and magnesium, and lastly calcium, chlorine, and iron oxide. Sulphates
exist only as traces in the muscles, but are formed by the burning of the
proteins of the muscles, and therefore occur in abundant quantities in the
ash. The muscles contain such a large quantity of potassium and phos-
phoric acid, that potassium phosphate seems to be, unquestionably, the
predominating salt. Chlorine is found in such insignificant quantities
that it is perhaps derived from a contamination with blood or lymph.
The quantity of magnesium is, as a rule, considerably greater than that
of calcium. Iron occurs only in very small amounts. The water of the
muscle occurs in part free and partly as imbibition water of the colloids.
According to the investigations of Jensen and Fischer1
only a small part,
a few per cent, of the total water exists in this condition.
Urano 2
has removed the salts of the intermediary fluid (blood,
lymph) from frogs’ muscles by treating them with an isotonic cane-sugar
solution (of 6 per cent) and in this manner found that the sodium did
not belong to the muscle substance itself, but to the intermediary fluid,
while at least a small part of the chlorine is a true muscle constituent.
He also calculated, from the quantity of sodium, that the intermediary
fluid, if it has about the same composition as the muscle plasma, makes
up about one-sixth of the volume of the muscle. According to further
investigations of Urano the possibility of a disturbance in the osmotic
propertiesof the muscle-fibers by the sugar solution is not entirely excluded,
and the question whether the muscle-fibers are free from sodium or not
has therefore not been positively decided. Fahr’s 3
researches make
the absence of sodium in frog’s muscle very probable.
The importance of the various mineral bodies for the function of the
muscles has been the subject of numerous investigations and by many
of these we have obtained further proof, as mentioned in a previous
chapter, of the ion action of the electrolytes and the antagonism of
different ions. These researches also indicate that each of the ions
Na, Ca, and K plays a certain part in the maintenance of the excitability,
in the contraction and in the fatigue of the muscle (heart); still these
investigations have not led to concordant results, so that we are not yet
clear as to the action of these ions. Nevertheless it seems to be estab-
lished that the combined action of various ions is a necessity for the nor-
mal function of the muscles. It has also been shown that it is possible
to maintain the muscle (the heart) in regular activity for a long time by
means of a transfusion of liquid saturated with oxygen, and which con-
Jensen and Fischer, Bioch. Zeitschr., 20.
* Zeitschr. f. Biol., 50.
3
Urano, ibid., 51; P’ahr., ibid., 52.
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