470 THE NEKVOUS SYSTEM 



those of any other neurone nor with any other tissue within the 

 body ; their relation to one another is as a rule one of contiguity 

 rather than of anatomical continuity. 



The observations of Apathy, Bethe, Held, and others, have 

 demonstrated that neurofibrils are at times continued from one 

 neurone to another. But while these observations serve as an 

 important addition to our knowledge of the histology of the nerv- 

 ous tissues, they do not materially alter our conception of the 

 neurone as an anatomical unit of the nervous system, any more 

 than the occasional occurrence of a syncytium modifies our views 

 of the cell as an anatomical unit of body structure. The neurone 

 is a nerve cell in the broadest sense of the term. 



The connection existing between the several tissue elements of 

 the body and the peripheral neuraxes of the nervous system takes 

 place through the intervention of the nerve end organs, motor and 

 sensory, in nearly all the tissues of the body, at the peripheral 

 terminations of the nerve fibres. These end organs have been 

 described in a previous chapter, and will not need further discus- 

 sion at this time. 



The contiguous relationship of different neurones within the 

 nervous system occurs in any one of several ways. The terminal 

 arborizations or end brushes of one neurone may interlace with : 



a. the end brushes of neuraxes belonging to other neurones, 



b. the end brushes of collaterals of other neurones, 



c. the dendrites of other neurones, or 



d. the terminal arborization may surround, basket-like, the 



cell body of other neurones. 



Golgi Cell Types. The length of the neuraxis varies greatly in 

 different neurones. Dependent upon this fact, as demonstrated 

 in preparations by the staining method of Golgi, nerve cells have 

 been classified into two cell types, Golgi cells, Type I, and 

 Type II. 



a. Golgi cells, Type 7, viz., those having long neuraxes. 



The neurones of this type send their neuraxes beyond the con- 

 fines of the grey nucleus in which their cell bodies lie and in which 

 their dendrites are distributed. Such, for example, are the periph- 

 eral motor neurones whose cells lie in the spinal cord, and whose 

 neuraxes are distributed to the various muscles of the body ; such 

 also are the central motor neurones whose cells lie in the cerebral 

 cortex, and the end brushes of whose neuraxes surround the cell 



