The Motility of Muscle and Cells

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Only recently has it been possible to separate the immense number of processes taking place in the excited cell and in all muscles from those that directly underlie vital movements. The author discusses the phenomena and conditions in the interior of the muscle fiber during contraction and relaxation; he describes the seven conditions enabling the muscle to accomplish a complete contraction cycle; and he presents the conditions of four groups of cell movements.

The experimental data in this book have been arranged in such a way as to show clearly the conditions in the interior of muscle and cells necessary for producing contraction on the one hand and relaxation on the other. The difference between the conditions necessary for the movement of certain organelles of cells and those for muscular contraction and the musclelike contraction of the cells has been shown. Thus evidence is given that nature has invented several very different mechanisms of movement. The author synthesizes the known experimental data on muscular movement and musclelike cell movement into a new theory of contraction.