ii6 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



one, without sufficient generalization though, and without a full 

 discussion of all available facts in its favor. The description 

 of the pyramidal tract and its connection with the anterior horn 

 cell is presented both in the text and in the drawing exactly as 

 we would do today. He speaks of the pyramidal cell, its nerve- 

 fiber and the terminal ramification of the latter in the spongy 

 substance of the anterior horn, and of the anterior horn cell, 

 the fiber proceeding from it, passing through the anterior 

 root and nerve trunk to the muscle, where it divides and rami- 

 fies on the muscular fiber. This was written before August 

 1886, but that a nerve-fiber was under all circumstances merely a 

 part of a cell, was not even accepted by Edinger,^ who, as late 

 as 1 89 1, speaks of a double origin of nerve-fibers ; first, from 

 nerve-cells, as Deiters and others had shown for the connection 

 of motor nerve-fibers and the large cells of motor nuclei and 

 'anterior horns,' and second, from the 'network consisting of 

 all the processes of ganglion and glia-cells,' a mode of origin 

 illustrated by Gerlach and others especially for the posterior 

 root-fibers. 



About August 1886, two Swiss scholars, Prof. HisinLeip- 

 sic and Prof. Forel in Zurich, gave the medical public two stud- 

 ies which established the conception that the nervous system 

 consists of independent cells like all the rest of the human or- 

 gans. Prof. His stood on the ground of embryology. Prof. 

 Forel used the results of the method of Golgi for an analysis 

 of the experimental work with v. Gudden's method. The con^. 

 tribution of His^ has undoubtedly furnished more direct data in 

 favor of the new conception ; and when Golgi, R. y Cajal, 

 Kolliker, v. Lenhossek and others applied the silver method to 

 embryonic material, a vast amount of detail sprang up enrich- 

 ing our knowledge so rapidly as to make it difficult to follow. 



' Edinger, Structure of the Central Nervous System, Philadelphia, 1891, 

 P. 42. See also illustrations and discussions in Gerlach, Strieker's Handbuch 

 der Gewebelehre, Vol. 2, p. 679-685, 1872. 



* His, W. Zur Geschichte des menschlichen Riickenmarkes und der Ner- 

 van wurzeln, 1886. 



