In order to study the details of the contraction of muscle, the graphic method of recording the motion is applied. The curve may be drawn on an ordinary cylinder moving sufficiently rapidly. Where accurate time measurements are required, it is better to use one of the many special forms of instruments, called myographs, made for the purpose. The principle of all these instruments is the same; namely, an electric current, which passes through the nerve of a frog's muscle connected with the marking lever, is broken by some mechanism, while the surface is in motion; the exact moment of breaking the contact can be accurately marked on the recording surface, by the lever which draws the muscle curve, before the instrument is set in motion. The rate of motion is registered by a tracing drawn by a tuning fork of known rate of vibration.

In order that the muscle-nerve preparation may not be injured by the tissues becoming too dry, it is placed in a small glass box, the air of which is kept moist by a damp sponge. This moist chamber is used when any living tissue is to be protected from drying.

The first myograph used was a complicated instrument devised by Helmholtz; in which a small glass cylinder is made to rotate rapidly by a heavy weight, and when a certain velocity of rotation is attained, a tooth is thrown out by centrifugal force, which breaks the circuit of the current passing through the nerve of the muscle. The tendon is attached to a balanced lever, at one end of which hangs a rigid style pressed by its own weight against the glass cylinder. When the circuit is broken the muscle contracts, raises the lever, and makes the style draw on the smoked-glass cylinder.

Fick introduced a flat recording surface moving by the swing of a pendulum, by which the abscissa is made a segment of a circle, and not a straight line, and the rate varies, so that the different parts of the curve have varying time values. The curves given in the following woodcuts are drawn with the Pendulum Myograph.

Du Bois-Reymond draws muscle curves on the smoked surface of a small glass plate contained in a frame, which is shot by the force of a spiral spring along tense wires, and on its way breaks the contact. The trigger used for releasing the spring sets a tuning fork at the same time vibrating (Spring Myograph).