Shrinkage of muscle fibres during the fixation of cadaveric tissue.

It has been shown that a small but significant loss in length occurs in human muscles which are fixed after removal from the skeleton. A comparison was made between the loss in muscle length when muscles were fixed in isolation from, and whilst still attached to, the skeleton in the rat. The conclusion was that no significant loss of length occurs when the muscles were fixed intact on the skeleton. Since the length loss when muscles are fixed independently of the skeleton in both the rat and the human is of the same order, it is reasonable to assume that when human muscles are fixed on the skeleton, no significant loss in length occurs. Since all human cadaveric tissue is fixed whilst on the skeleton, we may assume that shrinkage of the muscles in such specimens is negligible.