1862.] 67 



believes he has discovered that the nerve-fibres, on reaching a mus- 

 cular fibre, penetrate into its interior and end amidst the muscular 

 substance by several pale branches. He states that the nerve-fibre, on 

 reaching the muscular fibre, divides into several branches which retain 

 their characteristic dark contours until they enter the muscular fibre, 

 within which they become pale and faintly outlined. He conceives 

 that the tubular membranous sheath of the nerve-fibres coalesces with 

 the sarcolemma, and that the branches when they enter the muscular 

 fibre lay aside not only their membranous sheath but their white 

 substance, to which they owe their dark outline, and are in fact re- 

 duced to mere ramifications of the axis-cylinder or central thread of 

 the original fibre. 



In connexion with these internal fibres, Kiihne further describes 

 certain bodies which he proposes to name " terminal nerve-buds " 

 (Nervenendknospen). These are attached laterally to the pale fibres, 

 which then may end at some distance beyond in free pointed extre- 

 mities, while some of the pale fibres appear actually to terminate 

 in these end-buds. The bodies in question are stated to be oval- 

 shaped corpuscles, smaller than the well-known muscular nuclei, 

 usually pointed at their distal extremity, where they bear a minute 

 filamentous tuft. According to Kiihne each consists of a little oval 

 mass of finely granular substance, into which a fine filament, appa- 

 rently derived from the axis-cylinder of the pale nerve-fibre, enters, 

 like a pedicle, at one end, and runs along the middle as a sort of axis- 

 cylinder of the corpuscle, at the free end of which it swells out into 

 a small interior pyriform body containing minute spherules very dif- 

 ferent in aspect from the granules of the surrounding granular sub- 

 stance. The structure thus described presents, as Kiihne observes, 

 some resemblance to that of a Pacinian Body, but yet with marked 

 differences, and he does not lay any great stress on the point. 



These observations of Kiihne were made with a magnifying power 

 of from 1000 to 1800 linear, on fresh muscular fibres (from the gas- 

 trocnemius of the frog) immersed in vitreous humour or blood-serum, 

 also on fibres prepared by macerating a portion of muscle for 24 

 hours in extremely dilute sulphuric acid, then digesting for an equal 

 time in distilled water at about 100 F., and finally shaking it briskly 

 with a little water in a test-tube so as to separate the tissue into 

 single fibres. 



F2 



