1 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



The prestige of Gray's text-book is so great, and its use in our 

 medical schools so widely spread, that it has seemed advisable to give 

 a timely warning against the misconceptions under which the editor 

 labors- r. weil. 



The Conducting Element of the Nervous Sfsteni* 



The means by which impulses are conveyed to and from the cells, 

 has been and still remains one of the most fundamental problems of 

 neurology, and any contribution dealing with this or allied problems 

 must be of great interest, whatever its bearing on generally accepted 

 views. Dr. Apathy's monograph appearing from the Naples Zoolog- 

 ical Station is certainly one of the most significant ot recent publica- 

 tions bearing on the relations of the nervous elements to each other 

 and to the periphery. It is an article of 254 pages, illustrated by 9 

 plates, and its subject and scope are well expressed in the title. It is 

 the final (partial) communication of ihe results of ten years' mvestiga- 

 tion. The views entertained, which are quite at variance with those 

 generally accepted at the present time, were presented in 1887 in 

 much the same form as in the present monograph. - 



The order in which the results appear is admirable; an intro- 

 duction presents a summarized statement of the conclusions, together 

 with a terse discussion of their bearing and significance. The second 

 and principal porJ:ion is occupied by the original observations, fol- 

 lowed in turn by a discussion of the special methods employed. 



The conducting portion (axis-cylinder) of nerve fibers, our author 

 finds is made up of fibrillse which he terms "primitive" or "neuro- 

 fibrillae," these again being formed of "elementary" fibrillae (Elemen- 

 tarfibrillen). In accordance with their relation to these conducting 

 fibrils, two classes of nervous elements are recognized, which are 

 termed "nerve" cells and "ganglion" cells. The nerve cells are the 

 producers of the neuro-fibrillae and are to be regarded as analogous to 

 muscle cells, developing conducting substance as muscle cells form 

 contractile substance. From these cells the fibrillae grow centrally 

 into the ganglion cells, while peripherally their distribution is to muscle, 

 sense cells etc. Within the ganglion cells the neurofibrillae break up 

 into a mesh work uniting again to leave the ganglion cell in a process. 

 The further course of the neurofibril might be back immediately to the 



' Apathy, Stephan. Das leitende Element des Nervensystems und seine 

 topographischen Beziehungen zu den Zellen, Erste Mittheilung. Mttth. aus 

 d. Zoolog. Stat. Neap. Bd. XII, 4, pp. 495 748. PI. 23-32. 



» Biol. CentralM., Vol. IX., 1889, p. 608. 



