A view of the progress and present state of animal chemistry / Translated from the Swedish, by G. Brunnmark.

  • Berzelius, Jöns Jakob, friherre, 1779-1848
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A view of the progress and present state of animal chemistry / Translated from the Swedish, by G. Brunnmark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    96/130 (page 84)
    Various experiments have been made to dis¬ cover the intimate nature of the motion of the mus¬ cles. Carlisle has endeavoured to prove, by se¬ veral very ingenious methods, that a muscle, while it contracts, increases in weight and volume, and is consequently penetrated by an increased quan¬ tity of fluids. The most probable account of the in¬ terior mechanism by which the motion of the mus¬ cle is produced, seems to be, that the fibres must twist themselves round more distended vessels whereby the muscle in a particular place becomes shorter and thicker. It is necessary that natfire, by the mechanism of this internal action, should endeavour to regain what it loses by that of the external, in which every thing is conducted ac¬ cording to principles, altogether contrary to those, by which we a^e generally governed in mechanics. The muscle, by means of a small contraction, makes an extended motion, and consequently exercises its power near the fulcrum of the bone, Aviiilst the counterpoise is on the other remoter end of the bone. Nature seems here to be lavish in the power it bestows, since every muscle must make a far greater eftort, than would be necessary under opposite circumstances; this expenditure of po'ver must, how ever, certainly be balanced j)y the methods employed to shorten the smallest