218 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



conducting path without interruption of their continuity, by means of 

 loops, rings, or networks. He expressed the behef that there is no 

 distinction between the primary sense cell, as seen in the olfactory 

 organ, and the so-called secondary sense cells of the ear, since the 

 neurofibrillae do not lie upon the surface of the sense cells, but form a 

 continuous network within their protoplasm. 



London (:05) made brief mention of pericellular networks at the 

 termination of the vestibular nerve. He cited no references to other 

 authors in proof of such networks, but gave a single figure based upon 

 a preparation made by the Ramon y Cajal method from the ear of the 

 mouse. Unfortunately the figure does not represent the conditions in 

 sufficient detail to permit of satisfactory judgment as to the real nature 

 of the network. London concluded his discussion by expressing the 

 opinion that it would be well to abandon the neurone theory and 

 substitute the fibrillar theory. 



Kolmer (:05*^) in a subsequent paper gave an account of further 

 investigations, by which he sought to establish his earlier conclusions 

 on the broader basis of comparative study. He declared that the 

 conditions found in birds and rodents were in accord with those pre- 

 viously described, but not those in selachians and teleosts. 



Krause (:05) has taken a very reactionary position upon the subject 

 of neurological technique, maintaining that neither the Golgi method, 

 intra-vitam staining, nor the more recent reduction methods, have 

 brought us any nearer to a knowledge of the facts than we were twenty- 

 five years ago as the result of the work of Retzius, with whose figures 

 of that early time the recent ones of Krause are in close agreement. 

 He has investigated the conditions in the ear of Petromyzon, making 

 use of the older methods of fixation, such as the fluids of Flemming, 

 Hermann, and Zenker, and staining with EhrHch-Biondi's triple stain 

 or Heidenhain's iron haematoxylin. He described the nerve fibres as 

 expanding at the bases of the sense cells to form cups, which receive 

 the sense cells as an egg cup receives an egg. He maintained that a 

 mantle of nervous material surrounds the lower part of the sense cells, 

 from which the finest kind of fibres penetrate to the interior of the 

 sense cells. He found large and small fibres, as did Ramon y Cajal, 

 but no evidence for the free ending of the small ones, which he 

 described as terminating at the bases of the sense cells. Obviously 

 Krause's conclusions are in close harmony with those of investigators 

 who studied the problem prior to the introduction of the Golgi and 

 other special neurological methods. 



London and Pesker (:06) have approached the question from the 



