544 CINERITIOUS GLOBULES. 



matter in the interior of the brain, are of a deeper color than 

 that covering the surface : that in the crura cerebri is so dark 

 as to have received from Soernmering* the name of locus niger ; 

 that of the corpus dentatum of the cerebellum is yellowish. 

 A striking peculiarity in the mode of deposition of the cine- 

 ritious matter, is its distribution in detached portions. Thus, the 

 cineritious coatings of the cerebrum and cerebellum, have no 

 direct continuity with each other ; nor have the cineritious 

 deposits in the interior of these organs, any communication 

 except through the medium of the white or medullary portion 

 of the brain, with that of the spinal marrow, or of the different 

 ganglia upon the trunks of the nerves. 



-The cineritious matter, when examined with the microscope, 

 either in the brain, spinal marrow, or ganglia, is found composed 

 of cellular globules or granules varying from ^ to F0 s part of 

 an inch in diameter, having no distinct linear arrangement, but 

 embraced in meshes of capillary vessels and granular cellular 

 tissue, which serve as capsule about them. These globules form 

 a granular mass or layer spread over and amidst the medullary 

 matter. Each of these globules, according to Valentine, con- 

 tains two nuclei, one concentric and within the other, the smaller 

 and interior one being called the nucleolus. It has long been 

 suspected that the globules of cineritious substance, were in 

 some way connected with the termination or origin of the ner- 

 vous fibrils, as the bellies of the muscles are with their tendons. 

 Gall considered the cineritious substance as the matrix or genera- 

 tor of the white fibres. But this assertion is unfounded, if it 

 be used to imply more than a close and inseparable relationship 

 between the two sets of fibres. The question of their connec- 

 tion may now be considered as nearly decided. Remak and 

 Miiller,t both assert, that in their microscopical investigations 

 they have seen tooth-like white fibres coming off from the sur- 

 face of the cineritious globules. In the ganglion, Remak suc- 



* This variety of color in different portions of the cineritious substance, is not 

 peculiar to man. Cuvier found it to be the case in regard to the ganglia of some 

 of the lower animals. In the Helices he found the ganglia red, and in the 

 Aplysia, black, while the nerves were white. There is in some places pigmen- 

 tary matter deposited in the gray substance even in man, as in the locus niger. 



f Mailer's Physiology, Part 3, vol. i., Bennet's Translation. 



