258 PHYSIOLOGY OF MUSCLES AND XERVES. 



one poisoned with cm-are. Nor does it make any dif- 

 ference whether a strong* ascending cun'ent is passed 

 through the nerve of a sar^o/'iits thus conditioned, thus 

 inducing strong anelectrotonus in the intra-muscular 

 nerve-branchings, so as to disable it. He sees ip this 

 a proof that the nerves which spread through the muscle 

 do not share in this form of irritation. He has, more- 

 over, discovered that the nerves are not equally dis- 

 tributed throughout the sartorius. They enter at a 

 point somewhat below the middle of the muscle, and 

 distribute themselves upward and downward between 

 the muscle-fibres; but they cannot be traced to the 

 ends of the muscle, and there are at these ends regions 

 of from 2 to 3 m. in length, in which at least the 

 larger muscle-fibres are wanting. ( ^yhether the nerve- 

 net which, according to Gerlach, lies within the sarco- 

 lemma, extends ta these regions, is another question 

 with which we have nothing here to do.) The specific 

 muscle-irritants affect these regions exactly as they do 

 the rest of the muscle ; while the specific nerve-m-itants 

 (concentrated lactic acid and glycerine) are never able 

 to affect these ends, though they elicit single pulsa- 

 tions in the parts containing nerves. These nerve- 

 containing parts are also more electrically excitable than 

 are the ends ; by curare and by anelectrotonus their 

 excitability is decreased, though that of the nerveless 

 ends remains unaltered. 



Many objections have been brought forward against 

 these conclusions. For my part, in the very insignifi- 

 cance of the differences between nerve and muscle in 

 this point also, I am inclined to see new reason to 

 believe that these two organs, so similar in all points 

 (as yet we know only two important differences, which 



