Sodium,Potassium,Calcium,Magnesium and Phosphorus Content of Skeletal and Cardiac Muscle,Bladder and Uterus

Abstract

Few values are given in the literature for the distribution of mineral substances in the different kinds of muscle from the same animal.

Table I contains the results of the analysis of skeletal muscle (taken from the shoulder), right and left ventricle, uterus and bladder of 2 beef animals. The analyses were made by the methods described by Cullen and Wilkins, 1 on duplicate ashings which afforded sufficient material for duplicate determinations of most of the substances in each ash.

Of all the tissues, the uterus was uniformly the richest in sodium and poorest in potassium. The total phosphorus content of both uterus and bladder was decidedly lower than that of skeletal and heart muscle. The findings for skeletal and heart muscle, including certain small constant differences in the composition of the right and left ventricles, were in general agreement with those reported by Cullen, Wilkins, and Harrison 2 and Wilkins and Cullen 3 for human tissues. These authors made no analyses of human bladder and uterus. It is recognized that the presence of blood introduced a slight error but this probably does not invalidate the result.

While the concentrations of the individual bases in the 5 tissues show much variation the sums of the bases in milli-equivalents vary within a comparatively narrow range.