Volume 1

The collected papers of Sir W. Bowman, Bart., F.R.S / edited for the committee of the "Bowman Testimonial Fund" by J. Burdon-Sanderson and J. W. Hulke.

  • Bowman, William, Sir, 1816-1892.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The collected papers of Sir W. Bowman, Bart., F.R.S / edited for the committee of the "Bowman Testimonial Fund" by J. Burdon-Sanderson and J. W. Hulke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    of pearl in the microscope.'5' Previous to him no author appears to have examined them. But Leeuwenhoek,t his friend and correspondent, makes continual mention of his examinations of the muscular fibre of various animals. This acute and enthusiastic observer clearly recognised the important fact, that each elementary fibre is a perfect and separate organ in itself; he was astonished to find that in all animals, the largest as well as the smallest, these fibres are excessively minute ; he discovered the manner in which they are aggregated, and invested by areolar tissue; and by boiling and drying a muscle and then making transverse sections of it, he ascertained those of voluntary muscle to be polygonal and solid. He described the cross lines, which he conceived to be on the surface only and to be the coils of a spiral thread. To this structure he attributed the active power of the fibre, comparing it to an elastic coil of wire. He further saw the longitudinal lines visible on the elementary fibre, and considered them to be an evidence of a still minuter composition by fibrillge. All these points are well illustrated by figures, which leave no doubt of his meaning ; but, as his results are scattered through a great number of letters, much of what he accomplished seems to have been overlooked by later writers. Leeuwenhoek con- cluded that in contraction the cross markings approximate, but I cannot discover that he speaks of having seen this. He confounded the cross markings seen on tendon with those of muscle, and fell into the prevalent error of attributing contractility to the tendons. Malpighi incidentally mentions the minute structure of muscle in only one passage of his works.;); He appears to have seen the transverse stripes of the elementary fibre, and to have also likened them to those of tendon. Contemporary with Leeuwenhoek was de Heide,§ who, in 1698, published some observations on muscular fibre, describing and figuring the transverse markings. In 1741, Muys,|| in a voluminous work, with good plates, gave all that was previously known, and added many observations of his own. His book, however, is learned rather than profound. He separates the elementary fibres into the simple and reticulated, and seems to have considered the stripes to be the effect either of minute zigzags during contraction or of a spiral form of the fibrillge. Prochaska^[ next produced an excellent treatise on muscle, in which he explained, with great clearness, the figure, size, and solidity of the elementary fibre, and the appearances of the fibrillge into which it divides. He fell into the error, however, of confounding the transverse markings in the intervals of the discs, with other creasings or flexuosities which never exist in the living body, but continually present themselves in the dead fibre from mechanical causes. All these he attributed to lateral pressure * ' Posthumous Works,' by Waller, 1707—1 Life,' p. xx. t ' Epist. Physiologicse,' passim. J ' De Bombyce,' pp. 9 and 10, written before the year 1687. § ' Experimenta circa sanguinis missionem, fibras motrices,' &c, Amstel., 1698 || ' Investigatio fabricse,' &c, Lngd. Bat., 1741. ^ ' De carne musculari,' Vienna?, ] 778. 2 o 2