The effect of nitrate, iodide and bromide on the duration of the active state in skeletal muscle

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Abstract
If a frog’s skeletal muscle is soaked in modified Ringer’s fluid, containing bromide, nitrate or iodide in place of chloride, the tension and duration of a twitch, and its heat production, are largely increased, in the order Br3 and maintained in the interior by some influence transmitted from the excitable surface outside, its duration would depend on the time course of the responsible process at the surface. The facts ( a ) that the duration is greatly affected by the presence of, for example, iodide in the interspaces between the fibres, at a time when there is practically none of it inside the fibres, and ( b ) that the effect rapidly passes off as iodide is removed from the interspaces although a large amount of it may still be inside, is decisive evidence for the second view. These abnormal anions somehow affect the time course of the process, started by excitation, in the surface of the fibres from which the active contractile state is transmitted into and maintained in the interior. This exposes a new link in the chain of events connecting excitation with contraction.

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