THE NERVES. 



71 



Kiihne, lie asserts that by his own method of examination he is able to follow 

 the nerve-fibrils much beyond the point at which that author describes them 

 as terminating. The appearance of their penetrating the sarcolemma he regards 

 as an optical illusion, and the nuclei shown in the above figures are, according 

 to him, situated outside of the muscular fibres on the points of junction of 

 the fibrils which form the intricate and extensive plexus in which the nerves 

 terminate, so that the nerves nowhere terminate in free ends, not at any definite 

 part of the fibre; but, on the contrary, surround every point of the latter with 

 a very close interlacement. 



Fie. 36. 



Terminations of motor nerves, according to Beale. 1. Nerve-tuft on the sarcolemma of a muscular fibre; 

 chameleon. Nerve-fibres are seen passing out of as well as into the tuft. 2. Nerve-fibres distributed to 

 elementary muscular fibre; chameleon, x 3000, and reduced half. This is a very simple form of " nerve 

 tuft," clearly external to the snrcolemma. 3. The intimate structure of a very simple "nerve tuft" on a 

 muscular fibre of the chameleon. It will be observed that the nerve fibres are continuous throughout, and 

 that the whole is on the surface of the sarcoleinma, x 3000. This " nerve tuft" is, as it were, but a com- 

 pound network. 



By the kindness of Dr. Beale we are enabled to reproduce some of the figures 

 representing preparations which he exhibited to the British Medical Associa- 

 tion at Oxford, in 1868, in illustration of this view. 



