Huber-DeWitt, Nerve- Endings in Muscles. 177 



pared with nerve endings in other tissues. Thus far in our dis- 

 cussion, no mention has been made of the behavior of the 

 myelin of the meduUated fiber ending in the motorial end- 

 plate. This, as is well known, stops abruptly as soon as the 

 sarcolemma is reached by the nerve fiber; this fact is confirmed 

 in our preparations, the myelin often staining faintly blue. 



Before leaving the discussion of the ending of the axis 

 cylinder in the motorial end-plate, attention needs to be drawn 

 to some curious endings now and then seen among the endings 

 thus far described. One such is shown in Fig. 2. As may 

 here be seen, the axis cylinder terminates in an ending which 

 does not in the least resemble the ones shown in the other figures. 

 Instead of fine branches which may clearly be made out, we 

 have here short, coarse and very granular fibers which seem to 

 anastomose. We are thus far unable to give any explanation 

 of these structures, the more so since they have been met only 

 a few times, but always in muscle in which the great majority 

 of the motor endings seemed in every way normal. They are 

 mentioned here simply as a curious anomaly. 



The sole and its nuclei. The granular mass, in which the 

 nerve fiber terminates, was at first looked upon as the expanded 

 end of the nerve fiber — Doyere, Engelmann and also Kiihne in 

 his earlier writings. Kiihne deserves the credit of the discovery 

 that the axis cylinder terminates under the sarcolemma in the 

 nucleated granular substance which he described as the sole 

 (^Sohle) ; the nuclei, as sole nuclei [Sohlenkerne). 



This granular sole differs greatly in its behavior toward 

 staining reagents, even in its reaction to the same stain in dif- 

 ferent parts of the same preparation. In some of the gold 

 chloride preparations, it remains entirely unstained, in others, 

 is only faintly stained, and in still others, it takes a reddish color 

 somewhat dtieper than the muscle substance yet less deep 

 than the branches of the axis cylinder ; usually the nuclei of 

 the sole may be made out more or less clearly. Kiihne, and it 

 seems to me very correctly, makes the following comment on 

 this point : "Ohne Zweifel sind in der Deutung der Gold bilder 

 die gefahrlichsten Irrthiimer dadurch entstanden dass man die 



