62 Degenerative Changes in Sensory End Organs of Muscles. 



The normal muscle-spindle showed the existence of a spiral form 

 of nerve termination in connection with the large nerve fibre that 

 passes to the equatorial region of the spindle, this spiral nerve 

 termination is shown to wind round a muscle fibre, which at this 

 point contains large cells, at one point completely filling the muscle 

 fibre and interrupting the striation, but tailing off in either direc- 

 tion so that the cells come to lie in the centre of the muscle fibre. 

 It is then shown that in twenty-four hours after section of the nerve 

 changes may be seen in this spiral termination, and that in forty- 

 eight hours after section of the nerve the spiral is no longer recognis- 

 able, oval and elongated granular cells now making their appearance. 

 Changes then appear in the large intramuscular cells. The musculo- 

 spiral nerve was then examined in three parts of its course, (1) in 

 the muscle, (2) at its entrance into the muscle, (3) near its origin, at 

 various periods after section of the nerve. No obvious change could 

 be found in the nerve till between the fifth and seventh day after 

 section of the nerve, and at that time degeneration was as marked 

 in the central portion of the nerve as in the peripheral (Marchi and 

 Marchi-Pal methods were used). 



The existence of a spiral form of nerve termination has already 

 been described by Ruffini as encircling a muscle fibre, and other 

 authors refer to a spiral within the muscle-spindle; but it has not, I 

 believe, been shown that the spiral encircles the large intramuscular 

 cells first described by Kiihne. 



Early degeneration was first described by Cattaneo in the nerve 

 termination in the musculo-tendon organ twenty hours after section 

 of the nerve. Both these investigators used the gold-chloride 

 method, in the present research Sihler's method has been used. 



The results of the research have been to show 



(1) That within the muscle-spindle a spiral form of nerve ter- 

 mination exists surrounding a fine muscular fibre, in the centre of 

 which are large, clear, non-nucleated cells. 



(2) That changes take place in the spiral in twenty-four hours 

 after section of the nerve, and that such changes become marked in 

 forty-eight hours. 



(3) That degeneration of the medullated sheath of the nerve takes 

 place in the whole course of the nerve at the same time after section 

 of the nerve. 



(4) That no fatty change could be demonstrated in the intra- 

 muscular cells by the Marchi method similar to those found in the 

 case of tabes dorsalis in man. 



