Huber-DeWitt, Nerve-Endings in Muscles. 197 



the large medullated nerve fibers going to the muscle-spindles, 

 but have not ascribed to them any characteristic nerve ending, 

 and have usually regarded them as in process of division, pre- 

 paratory to the innervation of the resultant muscle fibers of 

 the spindles. 



2. Other investigators, following Frankel in this respect, 

 who found them especially numerous in phthisical subjects and 

 who speaks of structures very similar to the muscle-spindles as 

 " encapsuled bundles" (umschniirrte Biindel), have regarded 

 them as pathological structures, the result of inflammatory de- 

 generation. We may here mention Eisenlohr, who found them 

 in cases suffering with infantile paralysis, and Millbacher, who 

 has studied the structural changes in striped muscle in cases 

 succumbed to one or the other of several chronic diseases. In 

 his article, he speaks of three types of "umschniirrte Biindel." 



a. Incompletely encapsuled bundles ; 



b. Completely encapsuled bundles enclosing muscle fibers 

 plainly visible ; 



c. Completely encapsuled bundles, enclosing muscle fibers 

 highly atrophic. 



These three forms are regarded as developmental stages of 

 one and the same process ; and the capsule is looked upon 

 as the result of the proliferation either of the internal perimy- 

 sium, or of the adventitia of adjacent blood-vessels. 



Eichhorst has described muscle-spindles, or very similar 

 structures, judging from his figures, in the striped muscle of 

 alcoholists. He also attaches pathological significance to them 

 in so far that he traces the development of the capsule to the 

 greatly proliferated neurolemma of the muscle nerves, which 

 were found markedly diseased. We may yet mention Santesson, 

 who found, in a case of dystrophia muscularis progressiva, 

 numerous muscle-spindles, especially in the more atrophied 

 muscles ; they were regarded as showing an attempt at regen- 

 eration in diseased muscle. "S. Mayer and Babinski similarly 

 ascribe them to degeneration, although considering them physi- 

 ological rather than pathological, inasmuch as due to a degener- 



