180 STRUCTURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, BY MAX SCHULTZE. 



Remak* first called attention to this fibrillar structure, and 

 it was subsequently further investigated in the ganglion cells 

 of various parts by Leydig, Beale, Frommann, Arnold, K61- 

 liker, and myself,f although up to the present time there has 

 not been complete agreement between the different observers 

 in regard to its nature. 



In consideration of the great difficulty experienced in isolat- 

 ing fresh ganglion cells, and in determining their distribution, 

 it appeared to me worth while to subject to severe scrutiny, 

 in the fresh state, those parts of the brain of the Torpedo in 

 which, as has long been known, large ganglion cells, similar 

 to the motor cells of the spinal cord, are accumulated in 

 great numbers.J 



It was most convincingly shown here that the large cells 

 removed from the living animal, and prepared in serum, in 

 which they were capable of being easily isolated, possess, both 

 in their processes and in their proper substance, an exquisitely 

 delicate fibrillar structure. In large specimens the interfibrillar 

 substance is strongly tinged of a yellow colour, and is in some 

 parts coarsely granular. These circumstances render the investi- 

 gation of the direction of the fibres difficult, so that young 

 specimens are to be preferred for examination. Each of the 

 numerous processes of these ganglion cells receives a compound 

 fibril from the cell substance, giving the impression that the 

 whole mass of fibrils given off by ganglion cells only traverse 

 it. The nucleus of these cells is seen with a sharply defined 

 outline lying imbedded in the finely granular fibrillated mate- 

 rial, but does not appear to stand in any direct connection 

 with the fibrils which cover its external surface. Its substance 

 is homogeneous, and it contains in its interior a large nucleolus 

 which stands out in strong relief as a highly refractive sphe- 

 rical body, and conceals one, or more rarely several, vacuolse. 

 We may regard such a ganglion cell, from which a peripheric- 

 ally directed nerve fibre proceeds, as representing the source 



* Monatsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1853. 



t See Kolliker, Handbuch der Gewebelehre, 5. Auflage, p. 251, and 

 the woodcut on p. 275. 



| Observations de Structura cellularum fibrarumque nervearum. Banner 

 Universitdts Programm, Aug., 1868. 



