On the Chronaxie of the Muscle Fibre

The author carried out some experiments investicating the relation between the capacity and the applied voltage of the electrical current need to excite the Frog's muscle by Lapicque's chronaximètre. In these experiments the exact results were obtained only by stimulation of a single muscle fibre (M. basihyoideus) by a capillar pore electrode after Pratt. The strength-duration curve obtained by such a method is a smooth and continuous hyperbola as shown by Hoorweg and Weiss. From these results the author concluded that a muscle fibre has only one excitable substance. Calculating the data, the author noticed that the chronaxie is the time in which the muscle excites with the minimum energy. The action of curare upon muscle fibre was also investigated. It acts only upon. rheobase and elevates it, but not upon chronaxie at all.