THE NUCLEI TUBEEIS LATERALES AND THE SO-CALLED 

 GANGLION OPTICUM BASALE. 



By EDWARD F. MALONE, 



(From the Anatomical Laboratory of the UniverHty of Cincinnati.) 



There is perhaps no region of the mammalian brain concerning 

 whose cell groups less is known than that portion of the telencephalon 

 known as the pars optica hypothalami. The cell groups which consti- 

 tute the subject of this article are so vague and so hopelessly confused 

 in the literature that it is not even possible to determine whether the 

 names basal optic ganglion and nuclei tuberis should be applied to 

 different cell groups or to different portions of the same cell group. 

 In this article it will be shown that these names should be applied to 

 entirely different cell groups ; moreover the location and extent of the 

 two cell groups will be described in different mammals, together with a 

 consideration of their relation to surrounding groups of cells, and it 

 will be shown that these two cell groups under consideration are com- 

 posed of cells of radically different character through which each group 

 may be readily distinguished from the other and from the surrounding 

 cell groups. In addition the cell groups of the pars mammillaris of the 

 hypothalamus will be described. 



When we consider the methods employed by most of those who study 

 the anatomy of the mammalian brain perhaps it will not be surprising 

 to realize that the best description of the basal optic ganglion and the 

 nuclei tuberis is that of Kolliker published in 1896, however faulty and 

 confusing this description may be. The reason for this lack -of infor- 

 mation concerning these cell groups is that most workers are interested 

 in the course of fiber tracts, and their interest in the structure of the 

 nervous system is for the most part limited to the largely mechanical 

 subdivisions revealed by fiber stains ; in such preparations the course of 

 fiber systems may often be followed, or at least they reveal certain 

 architectural differences of various regions which serve the purpose of 

 orientation. When preparations in which the cells are stained are 

 studied these preparations are for the most part regarded as showing 

 merely the negative picture of the fiber preparations, and the same 



