Swammerdam (17th century) stimulated a muscle in a fluid-filled jar with a small-bore tube attached, measuring a slight decrease in volume, disproving the "balloonist" theory of muscle contraction. This finding is well-replicated in frog sartorius, but there is a recent claim (Clark & Demer 2016) that human eye muscles are different in that they increase as much as 18% in total volume when they contract to rotate the eye. I don't believe it!

Can anyone point me to contraction-volume measurements in vertebrate muscles, or any muscles that might be more like human EOMs, or to an expert who might know about this stuff?

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