Popular Science Monthly Volume 24 January 1884 The Source Of Muscular Energy

By J. M. STILLMAN, Ph. NEW and useful scientific discoveries and inventions will not be sluggish at the present time in making their manner from the closets and laboratories of the investigators or discoverers to popular recognition. It's somewhat otherwise with the gradual development of information on subjects as soon as thought to have been tolerably clearly understood and of no quick practical worth. The gradual modifications which take place in generally accepted theories by the slowly accumulating outcomes of the labor of many investigators are, to make sure, appreciated by the particular pupil in the actual division of information involved, however are slower in assembly with public recognition. It thus occurs that teachers and books, not dealing as a specialty with the subject concerned, often undertake and repeat as authoritative views and theories which, by the specialists in these branches, have either been abandoned or introduced seriously into query. Nor is it to be in any other case expected.



Chroniclers are quick to grab upon and distribute the information of brilliant or startling discoveries or innovations, but these are fewer who will observe patiently the slowly accumulating evidence of many employees, appreciate the bearing of their work, and produce it in a form by which it may be appreciated by those non-specialists most occupied with the subject concerned. It is thus, to a certain extent, with the subject of the supply of muscular energy in the animal organism. It is needless to specify on this explicit. Text-books and well-liked articles touching on the subject are regularly asserting, as apparently unquestioned, theories which at the present time are either exploded or BloodVitals wearable very much in doubt. It would appear, subsequently, not with out value to try, as far as practicable in a well-liked or semi-widespread article, a general assertion of the present condition of the theories on the source of muscular power, and of the principle points of the proof which tends to support these theories.



The final acceptance of the legislation of the conservation and correlation of physical forces had without delay an necessary influence in directing consideration to the source of muscular power. The thought was readily taken up that this form of pressure is on the expense of heat, which is produced by the oxidation of carbon and hydrogen in the body, the required oxygen being conveyed by the arterial blood to the muscular tissue. In other phrases, the somewhat trite comparability of the human physique and the muscular system to an engine, which consumes just a lot fuel to produce a lot force, has fairly clearly formulated the thought as generally accepted. And thus far because it goes the comparability isn't bad. When, nevertheless, we pass beyond this considerably vague simile to an examination of the more intimate nature of those various processes, we find the questions raised are not so usually understood.



Accepting that the muscular power is produced by the final word oxidation of carbon and hydrogen to carbonic-acid gasoline and water respectively, the subsequent questions that suggest themselves are: "What is the fast source of this carbon and hydrogen-the gas materials for muscular force?" and "What is the real nature of those processes which we name briefly oxidation?" The endeavors to answer these questions have given rise to many discussions and disputes, which are, even at the current day, in no way concluded. Before taking on the dialogue of the theories superior to answer these questions, it won't be out of place to evaluation very briefly the composition of the muscles and their basic relations to the circulation-only in so far, nevertheless, as is necessary for a clear comprehension of the proof and arguments involved within the discussion. A muscle is essentially a collection of lengthened cells held together by a connective tissue. Each cell consists of a delicate cell-wall or membrane containing a fluid or semi-fluid mass of dwelling (protoplasmic) matter.



This gelatinous substance possesses the ability of contraction below the stimulus of excitations of assorted sorts-nervous impulse, electricity, heat-and the cell turns into thereby shortened. This course of, going down concurrently in all of the cells of a given muscle under the affect of the same thrilling trigger, is what exerts the ability of the contracting muscle. The intensity of this shortening or contracting power has been approximately measured-e. The muscles are supplied with blood by the fantastic ramifications of the arteries, and the blood is carried out away again by the ramifications of the veins, BloodVitals wearable the arterial blood dropping oxygen and taking over carbonic acid throughout its passage, as is the case in the opposite tissues also. Regarding the composition of the muscular tissue, it may be merely famous that the tissue itself is composed primarily of albuminoid material (cell-contents) and of the substance of the connective tissue, which is, just like the albuminoids, composed primarily of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and in a lot the same proportions.