'Myoidema' and 'Myotatic Irritability'

as soon as the belly slips out completely, an elongated palpable swelling appears in the muscle which quickly disappears. In other skeletal muscles the sign may be elicited by tapping the belly of the muscle with a patellar hammer when nodular tumour-like swelling appears at the site of tapping. I have come to believe that myoidema and myotatic irritability have a common significance and both of them denote a living and mechanically irritable muscle. The distinction between them appears to be more quantitative rather than qualitative, depending upon the strength of the stimulus and the size of the muscle strands.. Whereas myoidema could be elicited with some skill and by varying the strength of the stimulus in most of the males, myotatic irritability was sometimes difficult to be obtained in the obese and the thickly set.