ELECTRICAL FISHES 



365 



with nearly quadratic meshes (31 6). The majority of later 

 workers have determined by the help of modern methods (in 

 particular with metallic impregnation, e.g. gold, silver), as also 

 on fresh electrical plates of Torpedo, that the nerve -endings 

 are in all respects homologous with the motor end-plates of 

 striated muscle in the higher vertebrates. If we examine 

 Kanvier's picture of a small portion from the terminal arborisation 

 of the nerves of the plate, treated with silver (Fig. 234) 

 or such figures as are given by Ciaccio (6), Boll (5), Krause 



^s 



FIG. 234. Small portion of the terminal 

 nervous arborisation in electrical 

 plate of Torpedo (silver preparation). 

 (Ranvier.) 



FIG. 235. Portion of nervous ramification in a 

 plate of Torpedo, showing Boll's punctua- 

 tion. (Ciaccio.) 



(17), and recently Ballowitz (2) and Iwanzoff (15), after treat- 

 ment with osmic acid, gold chloride, hsematoxylin, Golgi's method, 

 etc. the exactness of the comparison is at once obvious, 

 and it is difficult to understand how Fritsch (12) could entirely 

 deny the existence of such a terminal nervous arborisation. 

 Biedermann has invariably been able to recognise it in fresh 

 preparations, where it covers the whole ventral surface of each 

 disc like a gigantic end-plate. And, indeed, when we consider 

 the development of the electrical plates from metamorphosed, 

 striated muscle-fibres, the homology between the terminal nervous 

 arborisations on the ventral surface and the motor end-plates can 

 hardly be disputed. Schonlein even states that he is now 



