i6o Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



the frog, tortoise, bird, rat, rabbit, cat and dog. Our mode of 

 procedure was in each case as follows : 



A I % solution of methylen blue in normal salt was in- 

 jected into the artery supplying the region in which the neuro- 

 tendinous end-organs to be studied were situated, until the part 

 assumed a distinctly blue color. Some thirty minutes to one 

 hour after the injection, the muscles and tendons to be studied 

 were quickly exposed and removed to a slide moistened with 

 normal salt and were then placed in one or the other of the fix- 

 atives mentioned, as soon as the nerve terminations were clearly 

 seen under the microscope. Many end-organs from each of the 

 above mentioned vertebrates were, after staining in methylen 

 blue, fixed in ammonium picrate and cleared in glycerine-am- 

 monium-picrate ; the ending was then carefully teased out un- 

 der the dissecting microscope and mounted in the glycerine- 

 picrate solution. 



By this method, preparations are obtained, in which the 

 general structure of the nerve-ending, its relation to the tendon 

 fasciculi and muscle fibers and the general distribution of the 

 nerve fiber or fibers terminating in the ending, as also the con- 

 figuration of the ultimate ending of the nerves, may be readily 

 made out. Other neuro-tendinous end-organs were, after stain- 

 ing, fixed in ammonium molybdate, dehydrated, embedded in 

 paraffin and sectioned, transversely or longitudinally ; the sec- 

 tions were then fixed to the slide or cover glass and counter- 

 stained in alum carmine. In such preparations, the relation 

 of the ultimate ending of the nerve-fibers to the other structural 

 elements of the end-organs is clearly brought out. Some few 

 end-organs, after staining and fixing in ammonium molybdate 

 and after dehydration, were cleared in xylol, teased, and mount- 

 ed in balsam. 



The literature bearing on nerve terminations in tendinous 

 tissue may appropriately be divided into observations antedat- 

 ing and those following a communication on this subject, which 

 we have from the pen of Golgi, to whom must be given the 

 credit of first recognizing in tendon a special nerve end-organ. 



Rollet, as early as 1876, drew attention to a nerve plexus 



