THE CONTENT OF LACTIC ACID AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF TENSION IN CARDIAC MUSCLE

Abstract

There is a close correlation between the ability of the ventricular muscle of the turtle to develop tension and its lactic acid content. This relationship may be expressed by the equation S b = K (L m[long dash]L b), where S b is the stress developed in the contracting strip at any beat, L b is the lactic concentration at the time of that beat, L m is the maximum lactic acid concentration of complete fatigue, and K is a constant; the stress is obtained by the product Tension Xlength/Mass. This is to bo considered merely as a first approximation, since there are no data as to conditions when the lactic acid is present in small quantities, and the data at hand actually suggest a departure at very great degrees of fatigue.