PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 91 
changes taking place in the matter of which the substance of the 
cell is composed. But it is not proposed to discuss this question 
in the present paper. 
My special object in this communication is to direct attention 
to a peculiar appearance I have observed in these cells, which 
enables me to draw some very important inferences with reference 
to the connections and action of these very elaborate and most 
important elements of the nervous mechanism. 
In some very thin sections of the cord and medulla oblongata 
of a young dog, which had been very slowly acted upon by 
dilute acetic acid, the appearances represented (fig. 1) were 
observed. Subsequently, similar appearances, though not so 
distinct, have been demonstrated in the caudate nerve-vesicles of 
the gray matter of the brain of the dog and cat, as well as of the 
human subject. I have no doubt that the arrangement is constant, 
and examination of my specimens will probably satisfy observers 
that the appearance is not accidental. Hach fibre (a, a, a) passing 
from the cell exhibits in its substance several lines of granules. 
The appearance is as if the fibre were composed of several ver 
fine fibres embedded in a soft transparent matrix, which fibres, by 
being stretched, had been broken transversely at very short 
intervals. At the point where each large fibre spreads out to 
form the body of the cell, these lines diverge from one another 
and pursue different courses through the very substance of the 
cell, in front of, and behind, in fact, around the nucleus. Lines 
can be traced from each fibre across the cell into every other fibre 
which passes away from it. The actual appearance is represented 
in Plate VIII, Vol. LV, N. S.; and in the diagram, fig. 2, a plan 
A diagram of such a cell as that represented in fig. 1, showing the 
principal lines diverging from the fibres at the point where they become 
continuous with the substance of the cell. These lines may be traced 
from one fibre across the cell, and may be followed into every other fibre 
which proceeds from the cell. 
