320 S. W. RANSON AND P. R. BILLINGSLEY 
elsewhere except in regenerating nerves, we are somewhat skepti- 
cal of this observation. The presence of these few axons descend- 
ing from the superior cervical ganglion, however, raised the ques- 
tions, are there commissural fibers joining the superior cervical 
with the stellate or other ganglia? 
Here we can take up only the question of the existence of fibers 
connecting cells in different ganglia, and will leave out of account 
for the moment that of the interconnection of the cells within a 
single ganglion. According to Langley, there is no evidence 
which would justify us in assuming the existence of commissural 
fibers between the cells of different ganglia, and in certain parts 
of the sympathetic nervous system he has given strong evidence 
that no such connections exist. The mass of evidence which he 
has presented is very convincing, but is too extensive to be 
summarized here. The reader is referred to the account in 
Schiffer’s Physiology, vol. 2, p. 683, and other articles by Lang- 
ley in the Journal of Physiology, vol. 25, p. 468, and vol. 31, p. 244. 
We can refer here only to that part of the evidence which con- 
cerns the cervical portion of the sympathetic trunk. After this 
nerve was cut below the ganglion stellatum, and the rami com- 
municantes to the first and second thoracic nerves divided and time 
allowed for degeneration, stimulation of the trunk in the neck 
produced no effect on the pupil, nictitating membrane, eyelids, 
hairs, or blood-vessels. Hence the cells of the ganglion stellatum 
or the middle cervical ganglion do not send nerve fibers to the 
superior cervical ganglion or to the head by way of this nerve. 
Even in the normal cat stimulation of this nerve produces no 
vasomotor, pilomotor, or secretory effect in the territory supplied 
with such fibers by the ganglion stellatum. It is clear, then, that 
the superior cervical ganglion does not send commissural fibers 
to the vasomoter, pilomoter, or secretory nerve cells of the gan- 
glion stellatum which include the great majority of the cells in the 
ganglion. It is easy to show that stimulation of the sympathetic 
trunk in the neck is without appreciable effect on the heart of the 
cat. Hence no fibers descend from the superior cervical ganglion 
to the cardio-accelerator neurones of the middle cervical and 
stellate ganglia. 
