136 [June 19, 



I shall give no account to the Royal Society unless expressly requested 

 by the Council to do so, and assured that my communication shall 

 receive that treatment which I consider the importance of the subject 

 to demand. 



II. " Further Observations on the Distribution of Nerves to the 

 Elementary Fibres of StripedMuscle." By LIONEL S.BEALE, 

 M.B., F.R.S., Professor of Physiology and of General and 

 Morbid Anatomy in King's College, London ; Physician to 

 King's College Hospital. Received June 19., 1862. 



(Abstract.) 



After referring to the views entertained on the mode of termina- 

 tion of the nerves in the tissues generally, the author proceeds to 

 consider the arrangement of the nerves in muscle. The old view 

 was that nerves terminate in loops or networks which are external 

 to the sarcolemma. More recent researches had proved that these 

 loops and networks are composed of coarse dark-bordered fibres, 

 and from them finer fibres had been followed to the surface of the 

 elementary fibres, and it was concluded that these terminate upon 

 the sarcolemma infree ends. In the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1860, a paper by the author was published, in which it was shown that 

 the distribution of nerve-fibres to the muscles of the mouse was much 

 more extensive than was generally supposed, and that to each 

 muscular fibre, pale nerve-fibres with nuclei are distributed 

 throughout its entire length ; that numerous fibres cross the 

 elementary fibres at various angles, and thus the appearance of a 

 network of nerve-fibres is produced. This network is upon the 

 same plane as the capillaries, and can be stripped off the surface of 

 the sarcolemma with these vessels. Last year Kuhne published a 

 memoir on the termination of the nerves upon the elementary 

 muscular fibres of the frog, and supported his view expressed in 

 previous papers, that the nerves penetrate the sarcolemma and 

 terminate in close relation to the contractile tissue*. Kuhiie en- 

 deavoured to show that the white substance of the nerve ceases at 

 the sarcolemma, and that a pale nucleated fibre, the continuation of 



* Ueber die peripherischen Endorgane der motorischen Nerven, 1862. 



