110 CHARLES BROOKOVER 



or ventromedial!, of the olfactory nerve centrally, but takes a 

 dorsal position peripherally and apparently is distributed mainly 

 to the lateral half of the olfactory capsules. However, if the nasal 

 capsules of the shark were rotated outward and upward into the 

 position of the nasal capsules of most other fishes, it would have 

 the same ventro-median position. 



Details of anatomy of peripheral nerves are of most value when 

 they are brought into relation with the function of the part of the 

 body concerned. This has been the merit of the work of Sir 

 Charles Bell, of Gaskell, and of the American neurologists on 

 nerve components. We have already cited Pinkus as saying we 

 are in ignorance of the function of the nervus terminalis, while 

 Johnston has suggested its general cutaneous nature. We can 

 readily see that if it is of somatic type, it is sensory rather than 

 motor on account of the peripheral position of its ganglion cells. 

 In my own experiments upon Ami a there was no response detected 

 in the nasal capsules when the olfactory nerve was stimulated 

 near the olfactory bulbs with a strong faradic current. Neither 

 did I detect changes in the rate of water flow through the nasal 

 capsules nor blanching of the mucous membrane of the opened 

 nasal capsules in these experiments. However, I do not think 

 that the experiments prove that there is not vaso-motor control 

 exercised by the nervus terminalis, since there was always much 

 loss of blood in the operation of pithing, the parts are very small, 

 and I have failed to get inhibition of the heart-beat when the vagus 

 nerve was stimulated in the same way. 



The fibers of the nervus terminalis probably do not belong to 

 the same functional type as the fila olfactoria, for they differ in 

 the type of their nerve cells, their location, time of development 

 and central connections. No other specialized sense organ was 

 found in the nasal capsules of the fishes studied and those de- 

 scribed by Blaue ('84) in fishes and amphibians have been shown by 

 subsequent authors to be collections of ordinary olfactory epithe- 

 lium. As previously noted, Johnston has suggested that this 

 nerve is somatic sensory of general cutaneous nature. In chat 

 event it might be thought to serve the tactile sense or some unspe- 

 cialized sensibility similar to that which Parker ('08) or Sheldon 



