this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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Never made the connection, but when I was in human anatomy class, we removed the thigh muscle from a frog, hooked it up to a seismograph, and shocked it, to track the spasm.
As the shocks went on, it would eventually cramp up. Putting saline solution (salt water) on it, would release the cramp, and you could do the experiment again.
That's a direct example of salt making a muscle relax. I never thought to connect it to marinating meat.
I bet you could make a sick marinated frog leg
Frog leg is soft like fried chicken, doesn't really require it.
I marinate for flavor, not for soft meat.
This is the way
How many times did you need to do this to get the point? I feel like seeing it once, gathered around the teacher, would be plenty.
Also, a seismograph?
Yep, a seismograph. Mine was a vertical version, but yeah, the same thing. You suspended the muscle, with a pen attached somehow (I don't remember, it was decades ago), and when you shocked it, the muscle would spasm, and write on the rolling paper. As the spasms increased, the markings would be smaller, until it seized up, and drew a straight line. Then you'd douse the muscle with saline, and you could do it again, although the results were less dramatic on subsequent runs. It seemed like the muscle would eventually just fatigue, and not be as revivable by saline. So we only had to repeat it a few times.
And it wasn't just one experiment, being done by the teacher in front of everybody. We all had our own seismographs, and had to kill and dissect our own frogs. It was a real hand-on class, and was one of the best high school classes I've ever taken. It was a college level pre-med class, and I've used the info I learned in that class every day throughout my entire life.