F. THE LARGE INTESTINE, BY E. VERSON. 577 



through the longitudinal muscular layers, to join the mesenteric 

 nerves. A few small scattered ganglia are distributed in the 

 course of these nerves. In regard to the further distribution of 

 the nerves in the mucous membrane, no certain information has 

 been at present obtained, and the same may be said of the 

 mode of termination of the pale nerve fibres in the organic 

 fibre cells of the muscular tunics. 



The nerve cells which, accumulated in numbers varying from 

 three to thirty, form the ganglia, are in Man either unipolar or 

 multipolar, and have a diameter of from O006 to 0'019 of a 

 millimeter. 



The nerves are composed of non-medullated fibres. Both 

 the nerve trunks and the ganglia are invested by nucleated 

 sheaths. 





F. 



THE LARGE INTESTINE. 



The large intestine is the direct continuation of the small, 

 and exhibits in its several divisions, the cascum, with the 

 processus vermicularis and the colon, the same structure and 

 arrangement of its constituent parts as are presented by the 

 latter. It is lined by a single layer of columnar epithelium, 

 the individual cells of which not unfrequently vary considerably 

 in size and shape ; sometimes they are cylindrical or conical, 

 with truncated apices, and are therefore short and relatively 

 broad, and sometimes they are thin, and externally run into 

 long processes ; their nucleus is rounded or elliptical, and either 

 occupies the centre or the lower, i.e. the external, third of the 

 cell. In the newly born child the cylindrical epithelium may 

 frequently be seen to be detached from the subjacent membrane. 

 The thick hem or border of the columnar cells, both in fresh and 

 hardened preparations, presents the well-known fine striation. 



The mucous layer is similarly formed to that of the small 

 intestine. It is composed of a very close, yet delicate plexus 

 of cells, containing numerous lymph corpuscles in its meshes. 



In the newly born child there are found, besides, numerous 

 fusiform cells, similar to those met with elsewhere in embryonal 

 connective tissue. The Lieberkiihnian crypts are imbedded 

 in the mucosa. They form sometimes straight, sometimes 

 slightly curved tubes, arranged either perpendicularly or some- 



