THE MIDDLE EAR. 



55 



in that position as in the tympanic cavity. The corpuscles 

 may be either roundish, or elongated, or fusiform, and are 

 found of all sizes, from microscopic minuteness, O08 to as much 

 as 0'5 of a millimeter in length. 



Though I am not in a position to determine the histological 

 significance of these corpuscles, in a physiological point of 

 view their presence in the trabeculse, and the intimate con- 

 Fig. 285. 



V e 



Fig. 285. a, Point of entrance of the axial cord ; 6, point of passage 

 into a membrane ; at c and d, branches of the angularly bent axial 

 cord are shown with smaller corpuscles. 



nection of the latter with each other, as well as with the 

 mechanical apparatus for the conduction of sound of the 

 middle ear, seems to indicate that they participate to a certain 

 extent in the auditory processes ; but the precise determination 

 of this must be referred to the experimental physiologists. 



These corpuscles were first discovered by v. Troeltsch* in the 



* Virchow's ArcMv, Band 



