574 THE POSTERIOR PITUITARY AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



Deiters (1855) affirmed the prevailing theory undemon- 

 strated at the time that the nerve-cell was supplied with two 

 kinds of processes, the protoplasmic and the nervous, the latter 

 constituting the nerve-fiber. Gerlach confirmed the views of 

 Deiters, and showed that the protoplasmic processes subdivided 

 into a fine reticulum, which, he thought, anastomosed with that 

 of other cells. Golgi then demonstrated that, besides the two 

 kinds of processes described by Deiters, there were given off 

 collateral processes which, with the nerve-process, or axis- 

 cylinder, constituted the only truly nervous structures of the 

 cell, the other processes and the cell-body being purely nutri- 

 tional. The subdivisions of the protoplasmic processes or anas- 

 tomoses were not, in his opinion, continuations of those of 

 other nerve-cells, either by continuity or through nervous net- 

 works, though some of the protoplasmic extensions were con- 

 nected with neuroglia-fibers and blood-vessels. Forel con- 

 tended that the entire cell and its processes were simulta- 

 neously functional and nutritional. Ramon y Cajal concluded 

 that net-works of nervous fibrils did not unite the collateral 

 processes, and, these being absolutely free, there could be no 

 continuity of nervous substance between them, contiguity of 

 their extremities alone prevailing. 



We need hardly emphasize the fact that Golgi's views are 

 strikingly confirmed by our own; indeed, had this great his- 

 tologist converted the neuroglia-fibrils connected with blood- 

 vessels into blood-channels, our interpretations would have 

 been similar, though reached from entirely different directions. 

 And we must admit that we consider this striking similarity, 

 apart from the single line of research to which we have devoted 

 all these pages, i.e., the microscopical anatomy of the circu- 

 lation of the nervous system and the manner in which nervous 

 energy is produced, as a strong indorsement of our own con- 

 ceptions. While Forel is fully sustained by our analysis when 

 he asserts that all the parts of the neuron are simultaneously 

 functional and nutritional, Golgi is likewise in accord with us 

 when he considers the collaterals and the axon as the truly 

 nervous structures, the others being nutritional. We have seen 

 that the dendrites connected with the neuroglia-fibrils are 

 really blood-channels. True, they are covered with gemmules 



