771 
and from the former, for the first time, and after a number of ex- 
periments, obtained traces of the vascular nerves running in the inter- 
lobular spaces. 
Difficulty after difficulty in obtaining well defined pictures was 
at length overcome, and finally we succeeded in laying open to a 
large extent the nerve distribution of the organ, though naturally it 
is to be supposed that more details may eventually be found. 
The inter-lobular nerves do not differ in their appearance from 
those found in other organs to any considerable extent, having the 
same calibre and general contour of all un-medullated fibres, and 
except for the difficulty attending their impregnation with the silver 
salt, are easily distinguished. With the intra-lobular branches cir- 
cumstances are different. With some exceptions the coarser fibrillae, 
and many finer ones, run with and upon the bile capillaries, and are 
stained the same black color as the capillaries themselves, and are 
indistinguishable from them. We may readily trace nerves coming 
from the inter-lobular structures to the margins of the lobules, where 
they join some branch of the biliary plexus, and directly disappear 
upon it, this being the usual course of events, but occasionally there 
are exceptions (1): the nerve fibre may not follow the gall capillary, 
but may pursue an entirely independant course among the liver cells 
and is then clearly distinguishable, or (2) the gall capillary may 
remain unstained, while the nerves themselves are deeply tinged, and 
then may be followed with ease and certainty between the hepatic 
cells, and show their branchings well defined. 
On the first examination of a section stained by the GoLGI me- 
thod some little trouble may be experienced in distinguishing without 
difficulty between the finer gall capillaries and the thicker nerve fibres, 
both being equally black and of a rounded form, but shortly the eye 
differentiates; the course and wavy appearance of the fibres being 
different from the rigid biliary capillaries set with short spinous pro- 
cesses, which are entirely absent in the nerves, besides, commonly 
the calibre of the nerve fibre is vastly inferior to that of the capil- 
lary, and with strongly reflected light, it presents, on account of this 
fineness, a somewhat greater inclination to assume a reddish-black 
color. More rarely, when the impregnation of the nerve fibres are 
not so intense, they have a strongly reddish-black tinge, and are then 
very clearly distinguishable. Except by calibre, slight differences in 
staining, and a more wavy course, as well as by the absence of the 
spinous processes, there is but little, microscopically, to distinguish 
between the two at times, and where a very fine capillary and a 
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