The absolute value of the isometric heat coefficient TI/H in a muscle twitch, and the effect of stimulation and fatigue

Abstract

It is not technically possible to determine directly the lactic acid set free in a sing1e muscle twitch. It is necessary to calculate it from the initial heat production, or from the tension developed. The anaerobic liberation of 1 gramme of lactic acid in musc1e is accompanied, according to Meyerhof, by the production of 385 calories of heat (1). This 1eads to the equation:- 1 gramme-cm.(heat) ≡ 6·14 × 10 -8 gramme lactic acid. (I) The isometric coefficient of lactic acid, defined for a twitch or a series of twitches by the equation* K m =(grammes tension developed) (cms. muscle length)/(grammes lactic acid produced), has been the subject of much investigations by meyerhof and his colleagues (2, 3, 4, 5). Matsuoka, for the frog's sartorius muscle in Ringer's solutions, found a mean value of 1·05 × 10 8 (variation 0·69 to 1·36). Meyerhof and Lohmann, for frog's gastrocnemius, gave 1·40 × 10 8 as a mean, while Meyerhof and Suchulz gave 1·43 × 10 8 (variation 1·12 to 1·66). In the gastrocnemius, however, the fibres are not straight, and do not run parallel to the muscle length; consequently it is necessary to mutiply (see Mashino(6), A. V. Hill(7)) the value so found by a factor of roughly 0·63 to allow for the skew disposition of the fibres. This gives, when corrected, 0·9 × 10 8 for the gastrocnemius, so that taking account of the value 1·05 × 10 8 found by Matsuoka for the sartorius, the round figure 1 × 10 8 may be accepted. This leads to the equation:- 1 gramme-cm.(tension-length) ≡ 10 -8 gramme lactic acid.