Lest We Forget - Wireless Anatomy Commentary

for some time. Voluntary muscles on the other hand, act very quickly both when contracting and relaxing. Because involuntary muscles act so slowly they are very easily thrown into a condition of tetanus. Indeed, so slow is their response to stimuli that in some forms of smooth muscle, one stimulus in five seconds is sufficient to prevent the muscle from relaxing at all.

Curiously, however, smooth muscle has a disposition to act with apparent spontaneity. If a bit of circular muscle of the intestine of some animal be cut out, hung up by one end and stretched by a light weight attached to the other, it will very soon lift the weight and then relax again. The muscle makes these movements over and over again without any stimulus and they continue until the muscle is exhausted or until its unusual exposure results in its death. Isolated from the body in this way, the muscle can plainly receive no stimulus from the brain, and although different kinds of smooth muscle act very differently in this respect, they all have this power of spontaneous movement when entirely disconnected from the central nervous system.

Although in many respects striped and unstriped muscles act differently, yet in others their relations are the same. Both seem to require the stimulus of nerves to make them contract, although in one case the contraction is voluntary and in the other involuntary. Both can be thrown into tetanus by repeated stimuli. Both are affected by heat and cold in the same way. Both become fatigued from long action.

This mystery of muscular behavior to contract without any external visible link of nerve impulse could imply that the finer waves of the Wireless Anatomy of the etheric force is still in action and tuned to these fibres [fibers]. The central etherid [etheric] energy field still operates thru [through] all its parts which are of the same vibratory key and substance. The ether needs no wires nor other fields of communication than its own media. Energy crystallizes as matter and conditions it. Only the amount of energy impounded can be liberated from any substance. The electro-magnetic [electromagnetic] forces of the body have great influence on muscles. So has the Pranic sun energy and its magnetic fields. This phenomena is observed in decapitated snakes, frogs, lizards, etc. As long as the etheric center of any field or organism can spin of its own momentum and convert enough energy from the cosmos thru [through] a suitable media to maintain its local function, it will operate and carry out its specific action - like the chicken heart which has been kept alive for many years.^[1] In all organisms there is a superior concentrated pole where the total intelligence resides. Then there are subcenters to distribute this energy for specific local function. And, finally, there are rays and waves of dispersed energy which reach every cell to enable them to function and keep tuned to the whole. Hence, the manifestations of life may be a total or a partial phenomenon.

Cardiac Muscle

In its action, cardiac muscle is unique in several ways; it acts quickly, though not as rapidly as the ordinary striped variety. Unlike either striped or unstriped muscle, it always contracts to its shortest possible length, no matter how weak the stimulus applied to it. It can "beat" when unconnected with the brain, but even then it apparently depends for its impulse upon nerve cells in its own tissue.

Cardiac tissue is unique in that it cannot be thrown into tetanus. As has already been noted, this condition is usually provoked by the rapid recurrence of some stimulus. In heart muscle, however, two succeeding stimuli do not produce any larger contraction than one, and if another is applied just before the muscle begins to relax, it has no effect. As soon as the muscle really begins

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¹ In 1912 Dr. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), a French surgeon and biologist, isolated tissue from an embryonic chicken heart and kept it alive in a nutrient solution for over 20 years. This experiment has never been successfully repeated, and it has been surmised that new cells were being accidentally introduced with fresh applications of the nutrient solution. (The limited number of times that a cell can divide before dying is called the Hayflick limit, first described in 1961.) Dr. Carrel's experiment is sometimes mistakenly described as having been performed with a mature chicken heart.