ULTIMATE DISTRIBUTION' OF NERVE -FIBRES. 



731 



Fig. 391. 



from 



ence. The Author believes that it maybe stated as a general fact, 

 that both in the Motor and the Sensory nerve-tubes, as they ap- 

 proach their terminations in the 

 Muscles and in the Skin respec- 

 tively, the protoplasmic axis-cylin- 

 der is continued beyond its en- 

 velopes ; and that it then breaks-up 

 into very minute fibrillar, which 

 inosculate with each other so as to 

 form a network closely resembling 

 that formed by the pseudopodial 

 threads of Rhizopods (Fig. 232). 

 Recent observers have described the 

 fibrillar of Motor nerves as ter- 

 minating in ' motorial end-plates ' 

 seated upon the Muscular Fibres ; 

 and these seem analogous to the 

 little ' islets ' of sarcodic substance, 

 into which those threads often 

 dilate.— Where the skin is specially 

 endowed with Tactile sensibility, 

 we find a special Papillary ap- 

 paratus, which in the Skin may 

 be readily made out in thin vertical 

 sections treated with solution of 

 Soda (Fig. 392). It was formerly supposed that all the Cutaneous 

 Papillge are 

 furnished with 

 nerve - fibres, 

 and minister 

 to Sensation ; 

 but is now 

 known that a 

 large propor- 

 tion (at any 

 rate) of those 

 furnished with 

 loops of Blood- 

 vessels (Figs. 

 378, p, 398), 

 being destitute 

 of Nerve-fibres, 

 must have for 

 their special 

 office the pro- 

 duction of the 



Epidermis ■ Vertical Section of the Skin of the Finger, showing 

 _l -i + +i, no i * ne branches of the Cutaneous Nerves, a, b, inosculating 

 wiuibt wiose to form a plexuS; of wmcn t he ultimate fibres pass into 

 which, possess- the Cutaneous PapilLe, c, c. 



Gelatinous Nerve-fibres, 

 Olfactory Nerve. 



Fig. 392. 



