RELATIONS OF AUDITORY NERVE TO ORGAN OF CORTI. 173 



nerves in the most satisfactory manner ; at least, as regards 

 the innermost row of hair cells. The same mode of termina- 

 tion may, however, be also admitted for the other rows, since 

 several fibres may frequently be seen to pass together between 

 the external pillars. 



The external radial fibres appear to me to be constantly far 



Fig. 332. 

 -4 



Fig. 332. An arch of Corti (from a woman thirty years of age), 

 prepared with needles, and magnified 610 diameters. (The natural 

 disposition of the parts as seen in sections is not preserved.) a, In- 

 ternal pillars ; b, its capitular lamina; c, appendage, probably a portion 

 of an internal hair cell ; d, external pillar ; e, capitular portion (only 

 partially preserved) ; /, its base ; g, base of the internal pillar ; h, 

 nucleus, with its protoplasm stretching far in between the two pillars ; 

 i, nucleus at the base of the internal pillar ; k, rudiments of two ex- 

 ternal hair cells ; I, m, fragments of radially running and distinctly 

 varicose fibres which may in part be followed to the external hair 

 cells (nerve fibres). 



more delicate than the internal. In perfectly fresh specimens 

 they exactly resemble the finest axial fibrils of the retina, de- 

 scribed by Max Schultze, with the same characteristic drop-like 

 varicosities that these present as they run to the rod-granules. I 

 have observed this particularly clearly in an osmic-acid prepara- 

 tion made by Gottstein. Max Schultze (50), as is well known, 



