ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 165 



material. One might, indeed, be tempted to think that 

 while the physiologist has held the electrician more or less 

 in contempt, the latter has achieved his object by copying 

 certain of the natural processes described by the former. 

 That this is so is, however, open to doubt, because it is 

 questionable whether at the inception of telegraphy there 

 was in existence any illustration published of the nervous 

 system of man which could have so guided or inspired the 

 electrician. Moreover, it is difficult to believe that were 

 these systems of insulation borrowed from or suggested by 

 any physiological work we should have remained in 

 ignorance of the true functioning of the nervous system for 

 so long a period of time. The explanation, no doubt, is 

 that the electrician discovered certain natural laws and, 

 applying them, unconsciously imitated the work of the 

 Creator. 



TERMINATION OF NERVES IN MUSCLE. 



In the voluntary muscles the motor nerve-fibres have 

 special end-organs called end-plates. In the involuntary 

 muscles the fibres form complicated plexuses near their 

 termination. . . . Considerable variation in the shape of 

 the end-plates occurs in different parts of the animal 

 kingdom. In the voluntary muscles the fibre branches 

 two or three times, and each branch goes to a muscular 



Fig. 87. (After Schafer.) 



fibre. Here the neurilemma becomes continuous with the 

 sarcolemma, the medullary sheath stops short, and the 

 axis cylinder branches several times. 



