348 



PHYSIOLOGY 



much difference of opinion. If we examine a nerve-cell such as a cell 

 of Purkinje of the cerebellum, or a cell of Clarke's column in the cord, 

 we find that it is surrounded by a thick basket-work of fibres which 

 are the arborisations or end terminations of the axons which pass to 

 the cell to enter into functional relationships with it (Figs. 149 and 

 150). This pericellular network is of great extent and may equal in 

 total diameter the diameter of the cell itself. Whether the basket- 

 work is really a network, or merely a felt- work in which the fine 

 fibres intertwine among each other without becoming actually 



FIG. 150. Basket- work of fibree 

 around two cells of Purkinje. 

 (CAJAL.) 



a, axis-cylinder or nerve-fibre 

 process of one of the corpuscles 

 of Purkinje ; 6, fibres prolonged 

 over the beginning of the axis- 

 cylinder process ; c, branches of 

 the nerve-fibre processes of cells 

 of the molecular layer, felted 

 together around the bodies of 

 the corpuscles of Purkinje. 



FIG. 151. Superficialjietwork of Golgi surrounding 

 two cells from the cerebral cortex of the cat ; 

 Ehrlich's method. (CAJAL.) 

 A, large cell ; B, small cell ; a, a, folds in the 



network ; b, a ring-like condensation of the network 



at the poles of the larger cell ; c, spinous projections 



from the surface. 



continuous at any point, is difficult to make out. On the periphery of 

 the cell itself another network has been described and is known as 

 the Golgi network (Fig. 151). This has been displayed both by 

 the process of impregnation with silver chroniate (Golgi method), 

 as well as by staining with methylene blue. Some authors have 

 regarded this network as an artefact due to precipitation of albuminous 

 fluids on the surface of the cell. According to Bethe, however, the 

 Golgi network on the one hand receives fibres from the encircling peri- 

 cellular basket-work of axons, and on the other hand gives off 

 towards the interior of the cell fine fibrils, which are continuous with the 

 neurofibrillse of the cell and pass out in its axon. The diagrammatic 



