Volume 1

The collected papers of Sydney Ringer.

  • Ringer, Sydney, 1835-1910.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The collected papers of Sydney Ringer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    36/538 (page 18)
    xviii BIO-CHEMICAL JOURNAL happens when saline solution replaces saline solution containing potassium chloride 1 part in 5000. Soon after I added 4 c.c. potassium chloride solution and again induced the usual potash elfect, which was arrested again though more slowly by adding 4 c.c. of calcium chloride solution. I then again reverted to simple saline without inducing any contractions and again added 4 c.c. potassium chloride solution and induced well-marked potash contraction. These were again stopped though not so rapidly as on the first occasion by adding 4 c.c. of calcium chloride solution. Again I returned to saline, then added potassium chloride solution and again excited well-marked potash contractions, which calcium chloride once more arrested. This action of potassium chloride and the anta^fonism of calcium chloride I many times verified.’ In the later paper with Buxton it is shown that perfusion of the skeletal muscles with ordinary saline leads to similar contractions to which calcium salt acts again as a sedative. Skeletal muscle was found to differ from cardiac muscle in that, without any addition of calcium salt to the perfusing fluid, the period of relaxation became enormously prolonged, so that the trace became like that obtained from a veratrized muscle. Also, it was found that perfusion with sodium chloride saline alone very rapidly rendered the muscle inexcitable to direct faradization, but that excitability was restored on adding a calcium salt to the perfusing fluid. Ringer’s discoveries on the action of calcium salts upon contractile tissues and living organic processes in general led him to take a great interest in the studies of Hammarsten and J. R. Green on the action of the calcium salts in the coagulation of blood and milk, and to confirm and extend such observations in several important aspects. He showed that this favourable action of calcium salts was a generic property shared in feebler measure by the other members of the calcium group, and that it was to a certain extent antagonised by sodium and potassium, although this antagonism is but a feeble thing compared to that existing in living- tissues. He also investigated the action of calcium salts upon metacasein and alkali albumin, showing that, following in exaggerated measure the general rule for inorganic calcium salts, the protein calcium salts are much less soluble at higher temperatures. These papers on the action of calcium upon coagulation contain much interesting material, and many valuable suggestions; they are contained in the Journal of Physiology, Yols. XI-XTII. In the years 1894 and 1895, RAiger, in collaboration first with