262 



SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



loops ; by which I understand nothing more than anastomoses 

 of the ultimate twigs, effected by means of one or a few primitive 

 fibres passing from one twig into another. It is consequently 

 unimportant whether they follow a straight course, or are curved 

 in a looplike form (fig. 102). Whether, besides these loops, 



Fig. 102. 



Fig. 103. 



there are also, free terminations of the nerve-fibres, such as 

 are known to exist in the lower animals, and as I believe 

 I once noticed in a Rabbit, is altogether doubtful ; whilst 

 it is certain, that, even in man, divisions of the nerve-fibres 

 take place, although they are rare, and detected with difficulty, 

 and their relation to the loops, it must be confessed, is still 

 to be made out. 



The trunks entering the muscles are composed principally 

 of thick nerve-fibres, about twelve of the finer ones occurring, 

 on an average, among 100 of the larger (Volkmann). They 

 become smaller in the interior of the muscle, so that the 



Fig. 102. Ultimate expansion of the nerves in the omohyoid muscle of Man, 

 x 350 diam., and treated with soda : a, interstices of the terminal plexus ; b, terminal 

 loops ; e, muscular fibres. 



Fig. 103. Divisions of the primitive nerve-fibres in muscle, x 350 diam. A, double 

 division from the omohyoid muscle in Man; a, neurilemma: B, division of a nerve 

 from a facial muscle of the Rabbit, into three apparently pointed twigs. 



