TERMINATION OF NERVES EST MUSCLES. 31 



most reliable observations of recent writers are nearly all 

 unimportant; and while future investigations may enable 

 us to go further in following some of the elements of the 

 nerve-fibres, they will, in all probability, simply extend our 

 knowledge without invalidating the information already ac- 

 quired. 



The observations of Eouget were published in 1862, and 

 were made upon lizards, frogs, Guinea-pigs, rats, and other 

 animals, and confirmed in the human subject. 1 The tis- 

 sues were taken either from the living animal or from an 

 animal just killed, and were examined, in some instances, 

 without the addition of reagents ; but the most satisfactory 

 results were obtained by macerating the muscles for from six 

 to twenty-four hours in a liquid containing j^Vo" f hydro- 

 chloric acid, and adding to the preparation on the glass slide 

 a drop of a solution of sugar in water. In preparations made 

 in this way, it is easy to trace the course of the nerves to 

 their termination. The following is the description given 

 by Rouget-: 



" The nervous trunks and the branches of distribution 

 generally cross the course of the' muscular fibres. As re- 

 gards the terminal ramifications, sometimes they meet the 

 muscular fibres at nearly a right angle, and sometimes they 

 are placed nearly parallel to the axis of the primitive fascic- 

 uli. Branches of distribution are detached sometimes from 

 branches containing two or three fibres, and sometimes from 

 isolated fibres. After a very short course these tubes divide, 

 and may present as many as seven or eight successive divis- 

 ions. Most commonly, the termination takes place either 

 by divisions of the second or third order, or the same tube 

 gives off, successively, divisions which pass to the adjacent 

 primitive fasciculi and terminate here without new divisions 

 and after a very short course. They have a less diameter 



1 ROUGET, Memoire sur la termination des nerfs moteurs dans les muscles chez 

 les reptiles, les oiseaux et les mammiferes. Journal de la physiologic, Paris, 1862, 

 tome v., p. 574, et seq. 

 103 



