On the Structure of the Muscular Fibril and the Muscularity of Cilia

The latter paper, it is needless to say, states that every cilium is a twin spiral ; and, to confirm this discovery, there is a wonderful figure of a cilium from the gill of the common Oyster. This monstrous object appears to be partly of the nature of plant and partly animal, having roots whereby it grows, and the faculty of “spinning-up after threads ““by its twisting and untwisting.” It is not, however, very clear how this primitive “jenny” performs this task, nor are the threads, as their name would imply, to be regarded as the tail of the creature, but rather, if it had one, are they to be considered as its head.

The paper then proceeds to give a notice of a model in lead-wire of the muscular fibril, which Dr. Barry has presented to various colleges in this country, and to the University of Prague, we presume, for the edification of his sole disciple, Professor Purkinje. This model, which is intended to afford a complete elucidation of the mode of action of striped muscular fibre, will doubtless be found extremely useful to the venerable Professor, and to any others who may hereafter be misled into a belief in the inventor’s doctrine. But Dr. Barry has omitted to give a model to explain the mode of action in the contraction of unstriped and smooth muscular fibres, and in that of amorphous contractile substance. Professor Purkinje has also been gratified with the presentation of the model of a young cilium, and at the same time with this information :—” From analogy, it appears extremely probable that the heart arises, in like manner, out of the nucleus of a cell, being originally such a double spiral as in the cilium aforesaid. If so, the spiral form of the heart may be explained by the continued division of what was originally a double spiral fibre.”

It is satisfactory to find that Professor Purkinje has not kept this information to himself, but had the consideration to put it into German for the benefit of his compatriots. How they will have received it, it is not very difficult to surmise.

The former paper of those here cited assigns as the “main cause of the discordant views “respecting the structure of things in general, and especially of muscle, entertained by Dr. Barry on the one side and the rest of the world on the other, the fact, “that observers, in their endeavours to reach the ultimate structure of the muscular’ fibril, have actually gone too Far. Not content with the examination of the mature fibril, they have arrived at what almost defies the microscope—its embryo [whose?], mistaking and delineating for the fibril a row of quadrilateral particles, the mere elements thereof ; mistaking for the chain, as it were, a row of half-formed links destined to compose it.” “I cannot,” he very properly goes on to say, “wonder that in a row of quadrilateral particles no one could discern my twin spirals,—” nor, we conceive, can any one. He maintains, therefore, in the first place, “that it was impossible for them to agree with one another ; and secondly, as our attention was directed to two different things, that it was still less possible for any of them to agree with me. Hence, a main cause of discordant views on the “structure of the muscular fibril.”

This extraordinary declaration requires no comment ; but we would remark that not only in 1842 did Dr. Barry particularly recommend muscle from the tail of the very minute Tadpole (4 to 5” long.), and has all along maintained the existence and asserted the demonstrability of what he calls a coiled fibre in the blood discs (concerning which, see Microscopical Journal, Vol. IL, p. 257, 1842), beyond which one need scarcely go in search of the phantom ; but actually on the page immediately preceding that from which the above assertion is taken, he expressly and far more truly says, “in order thoroughly to understand the structure of this tissue, it is essential to see it in its most incipient state, and patiently to follow it through every stage, for,” as he properly observes, “at that early period its elements are very large.”

We have no purpose of discussing a question, which ought long ago to have been consigned to the limbo of oblivion, and notice this paper merely to admonish our readers that they must not expect to find in it any additional evidence or reasoning in support of Dr. Barry’s singular views. The reasoning being of a character of which the congruity between the two quotations above given may serve as a sample ; and the facts consisting merely of some diagrammatic figures of muscular fibre taken from preparations which had been preserved in weak spirit or glycerine for three or four years. The author also cites a very curious conclusion at which Dr. Allen Thompson had arrived, from the inspection of some of the well-known thread-cells of an Actinia, viz., “that if these double spiral, prehensile filaments of the Actinia are contractile, they may fairly be used as an argument in favour of Dr. Barry’s views.” That is, Dr. A. Thompson is of opinion that the structure (in this case altogether mistaken) of one tissue can be employed in demonstration of that of another with which it has no relation whatever.

But, that these unfortunate thread-cells should be brought into the argument at all is not a little surprising to us, who remember with what triumph they were received in Edinburgh, as an undoubted proof of the correctness of Dr. Barry’s views, on the supposition, mirabile dicta! in that city of naturalists, that they were portions of muscular fibre ! We were promised, at the same time, some specimens to the same effect from the Lobster or some other Crustacean, which, however, does not as yet appear to have been caught.