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.
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![• i contractilitv. 1 conclude, therefore, that a lime vsalt is necessary for the maintenance of museiilar ('ontractility.' ‘ But while calcium salts are necessary for the proper contraction of the heart, yet if unantagonised by potassium salts the beats would become so broad and the diastolic dilatation so jirolonged that much fusion of the beats would occur and the ventricle Avould be thrown into a state of tetanus.’ ‘ As the ventricle will continue to beat perfectly for hours without any sodium bicarbonate, it is evident that the normal trace is the result of the antanonising’ action of calcium and potassium salts.’ ‘ If these two salts [we should say ions at the present day] are not present in the correct proportions, then the trace becomes abnormal. If too little potassium is present, the contractions become broader, etc., and there results fusion of the beats. If too much potassium is present, or too little lime salts, then the contraction of the ventricle is imperfect, and by increasing the quantit}^ of potassium salt the beat becomes weaker and weaker till it stops.’ ‘ As the heart will continue to beat quite normally for hours without albumen or haemoglobin, it is obvious that these substances are not immediately necessary for contraction, but of course they are necessary to reconstruct the tissues from the loss due to contractions.’ In these few sentences we have the whole law and gospel of the action of inorganic constituents on contractile tissue, and since then there has been chiefly adding of detail. A great deal of detail was added in this and later papers by Ringer himself, and he demonstrated the same relationship in the excitation of rhythmic contractions in skeletal muscle and their inhibition by the antagonistic salts. In the next paper Ringer tests the effects of an excess of potassium salts, and finds that the latent period is greatly prolonged, and also the period of diminished excitability, so that the frequency of beat becomes diminished. In this paper also he points out a remarkable change to faradic stimulation of the A^entricle induced by potassium. In absence of any excess of potassium, faradization causes a fusion of beats in a contracted or systolic condition which Ringer, following Marey, speaks of as tetanus; in presence of an excess of potassium there is a reverse action, for now faradization completely arrests the contractions which recommence on discontinuing the faradization. Rubidium in all respects acts similarly to potassium, but the higher member of the alkali group, viz., caesium, possesses a quite different action. ‘ Caesium, indeed, ]>roduces for the most ]iart the opposite effects to](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28036530_0001_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
