24 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



tion leaves little to be desired. Ordinary hardening processes 

 do not reveal the structure as a rule. It may be that the pro- 

 toplasm is a delicate film which is thicker in certain parts than 

 in others but the relation to the intercellular nuclei is certain. 

 These are entirely distinct from the chromatophores. Bethe's 

 methylene blue process reveals the farther fact that nerve fibers, 

 which lose the sheaths after passing through the corium, end 

 in knob-like tuberosities in proximity to these nuclei, though 

 whether they penetrate the protoplasm or simply spread out 

 upon it remains, from the nature of the method, uncertain. 

 These nerve-fibers when stained with picro carmine or fuchsin, 

 in contrast to haematoxylin nucleary stains, seem to blend 

 with the protoplasm and it is difficult to decide which appear- 

 ance is nearer the truth. Such close contiguity between a 

 naked fiber and a naked protoblast is too vaguely different from 

 continuity to require physiological separation, however impor- 

 tant the distinction may appear morphologically. 



Here we have an illustration of a condition, which I be- 

 lieve is more general than we now can demonstrate, in which 

 a nervous end-organ is so connected with a meshwork of vast 

 extent as to suggest a very extensive somatic influence of a na- 

 ture similar to nervous reaction over vast tissue areas. 



We venture to suggest that there is no such sharp distinc- 

 tion between nervous functioning and the intracellular processes 

 of the ordinary non-nervous cell as our present terminology 

 and usage suggest. It is certain that in the differentiation of 

 function the cells of the body at large do not give up all of their 

 heritage of nervous or nerve-like power. Students of histo- 

 genesis may have been puzzled, as the writer has, to account 

 for the fact that a very remarkable degree of coordinated tro- 

 phic power is exhibed by the embryonic body prior to the de- 

 velopment of nerve tracts and end-organs. The phenomena of 

 nervous deficiency in anencephalic monsters is equally inexpli- 

 caple from the standpoint of rigid limitation of coordinating 

 power to the nervous system. In the sponges and Coelenterata 

 it is plain that the coordination necessary to individual existence 

 and perpetuation of specific characters is possible with no cen- 



