246 ALBERT KUNTZ 



During early development this ganglionic anlage is associated 

 solely with the oculomotor nerve. As development advances it 

 lies in close proximity with the anterior division 6f the Gasserian 

 ganghon and probably receives fibers from the latter. This 

 ganglionic anlage, therefore, sustains the same genetic relation- 

 ships to the oculomotor and the trigeminal nerves in larvae of 

 the frog as does the anlage of the ciliary ganglion in embryos of 

 the fish. 



Discussion 



It may be noted in passing that Camus, in the f)aper cited 

 above, maintains that the cells which give rise to the sympathetic 

 ganglia have not an ectodermal origin, as is held by neurologists 

 almost universally, but are differentiated in situ from the meso- 

 derm. Referring to his own observations on the development of 

 the ganglia of the sympathetic trunks in larvae of the frog, he 

 says, "die obigen Beobachtungen zeigen vielmehr dass die sym- 

 pathischen Ganglienzellen an Ort und Stelle aus dem Mesenchym 

 sich differenziert und mit den Spinalnerven zunachst nichts zu 

 tuhn haben." 



This is recognized at once as a reappearance of the old theory 

 of the mesodermal origin of the sympathetic nervous system 

 first advanced by Remak'* in 1847 and later revived by Paterson^ 

 ('90). It would seem to the writer hardly worth while to recon- 

 sider a theory so obviously erroneous and so long since outgrown. 

 However, the conclusions of Camus are based on careful obser- 

 vations and may, therefore, merit some consideration. 



As indicated above, amphibian larvae do not afford favorable 

 material for the study of the development of the sympathetic 

 nervous system by reason of the relatively meager sympathetic 

 supply and the presence, in early larvae, of a large amount of 

 yolk material. In my own work on the development of the sym- 

 pathetic ner\'X)us system in the Amphibia, the pictures presented 

 by Camus might readily have been duplicated. In sections of 

 early larvae of Amblystoma or Rana, sympathetic cells having 



* On the independent alimentary nervous system. Berlin. 

 5 Phil. Trans. Royal Society., vol. 191, pp. 159-186. 



