516 



THE ORGANS 



bodies of adjacent Purkinje cells. The medullated axones form the 

 coarser fibres traversing the granular layer. The cell body is fairly 

 well filled with small chromophilic bodies of uniform size, often show- 

 ing a sHghtly concentric arrangement (Fig. 346). 



The cells in the molecular layer (stellate cells) are either superficial 

 stellate cells with irregular branching dendrites and a short axone or 

 deep stellate (basket) cells. These latter are cells the axones of which 

 (apparently non-medullated) have a narrow neck and unusual thicken- 

 ing beyond the neck. They extend at right angles to the laminae 



i 



Fig. 348. — Section of Adult Human Cerebellum. Silver Method of Cajal. (Cajal.) 

 A, B, Cells in the granular layer enveloped by basket fibres; C, cell of Purkinje. The 

 axone of one of the cells of Purkinje is shown. 



for a distance of several Purkinje cells, giving off to each Purkinje cell 

 one or more collaterals which pass toward the granular layer and 

 envelop, with their terminal arborizations, the body and proximal, 

 non-medullated portion of the axone of the Purkinje cell. Collaterals 

 of other basket cell axones may terminate around the same Purkinje 

 cell, forming the "basket" (Fig. 348). The dendrites of the basket 

 cells ramify throughout the molecular layer. Besides the cells con- 

 tained in it, and the dendritic arborizations of the Purkinje cells, the 

 molecular layer contains the axones of the granule cells and the ter- 

 minations of the cKmbing fibres (see below) . In ordinary stains it pre- 

 sents a general punctate appearance, with the scattered nuclei of the 



