304 SPECIAL HISTOLOGY. 



into the medulla, following the course of the vessels, though not always 

 in apposition with them, towards the apophyses, and forming multifarious 

 ramifications, but, at least as far as I have seen, only few anastomoses. 

 In the second place, all these bones also present, in the apophyses, nu- 

 merous finer nerves, accompanying the equally numerous blood-vessels 

 directly into the spongy substance, and ramifying in the medulla ; and 

 thirdly, extremely delicate filaments are sent even into the compact sub- 

 stance of the diaphyses, in company with the minute arteries by which 

 it is penetrated. There can be no doubt that these filaments are dis- 

 tributed in the compact substance, although I have never succeeded in 

 finding them within it. The smaller cylindrical bones of the hand and 

 foot present the same conditions with respect to their nerves as the 

 larger ones, except that in them, on account of the undeveloped con- 

 dition of the medullary cavities, the numerous nerves are not so regu- 

 larly divided into apophysal and diaphysal. 



Of the short bones, I have found the vertebras to be the most abun- 

 dantly supplied with nerves, and especially their bodies. The nerves 

 enter posteriorly in company with the arteries and veins (vence basi-ver- 

 tebrales)j as well as anteriorly and on the sides, together with the vessels, 

 arid are distributed in the marrow of the spongy substance. In the 

 astragalus also, calcaneum, os naviculare, cuboideum, and cuneiforme 

 internum, I have noticed, in the larger, several, and in the smaller, at 

 least one nervous filament. 



In the scapula and os innominatum, the nerves are very numerous, 

 entering these bones chiefly at the points before indicated, with the 

 larger vessels, sometimes on the expanded portion, sometimes in the 

 neighborhood of the articular cavities. In the sternum also, and in 

 the flat cranial bones, the existence of nerves is demonstrated without 

 difficulty. In the latter, I have observed, even in the new-born infant, 

 in the occipital and parietal bones, nerves entering through the fora- 

 mina emissaria, which at this period also contain an artery ; and in the 

 adult, there are found in the parietal, frontal, and occipital bones, 

 although rarely, yet occasionally, microscopic filaments on the smaller 

 arteries, which enter the compact substance from without, and probably 

 penetrate as far as the diploe. 



From these observations, together with those of Kobelt, Beck, Engel, 

 Luschka, &c., there can be no doubt that the bones are richly supplied 

 with nerves. With respect to the origin of these nerves, they have 

 already been traced by previous observers to the cerebral and spinal 

 nerves, as for instance the nerves of the diapliyses of the femur, tibia 

 and humerus, to the nn. cruralis, tibialis, ischiaticus, and perforans 

 Casseri, as well as a nerve of the frontal bone to the n. supraorbitalis, 

 which observations, as far as they relate to the tibial nerve, have been 

 confirmed by my own, and by those of Luschka in the case of certain 



