184 STRUCTURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, BY MAX SCHULTZE. 



ot the nervous system. Amongst these small cells, some are 

 multipolar, some bipolar, and some unipolar. They form thick 

 layers in the cerebellum, and both Gerlach* and more recently 

 Franz Schulzef have shown that their processes consist of im- 

 measurably fine fibrils. If we therefore venture to inquire 

 into the central origin of the primitive fibrils in the brain and 

 spinal cord, which appear to exist already completely formed 

 in the larger ganglion cells, we may suppose that it is from 

 these extremely small and, in part at least, unipolar nerve 

 cells, though it must be admitted that this is pure hypothesis. 

 In the present state of our knowledge, however well we may 

 be acquainted with the peripheric mode of termination of a 

 great number of nerve fibrils, it cannot be said that the mode 

 of central origin of any single fibril has hitherto been proved. 

 We may, however, conclude from analogy that the central ex- 

 tremity is to be sought either in the cell substance of the nerve 

 cells, or in the nucleus, or in the nucleolus. Observations have 

 been made which render all these three modes of central termi- 

 nation of the nerve fibrils probable ; but no perfectly satisfac- 

 tory conclusion can be said to have been as yet attained on this 

 point ; and it is even conceivable, according to my observations, 

 that there is no actual termination of the fibrils in the brain 

 or spinal cord ; in other words, that all fibrils originate at the 

 periphery, and thus only traverse the ganglion cells. 



The question of the relation of the nerve fibres to the ganglion 

 cells appears, from what has been stated above, to be still an open one 

 on certain points. If the view long ago entertained, especially by 

 Valentin, that the nerve fibres only coil round the ganglion cells, and do 

 not enter into more direct connection with them, is opposed by the 

 brilliant investigations of Remak and Helmholtz, still the question of 

 the centric mode of origin of the nerve fibres has not yet been thoroughly 

 solved. It is obvious that the mere interruption of a nerve fibre in 

 some part of its course by a bipolar ganglion cell, as was so beauti- 

 fully described and delineated by Bidder in 1847, affords no informa- 

 tion respecting its centric origin. Such a ganglion cell is to be regarded 



* Mikroskop. Studien, Taf. 2. 



t Ueber der feineren Ban der Rinde des Tdeinen Gehirns, " On the 

 Minute Anatomy of the Cortex of the Cerebellum." Rostock, 1863, fig. 11. 



