274: LECTURE XI. 



delicate physical investigations that the nerves, which 

 had been previously assumed only to conduct in the one 

 or the other direction, possess the power of conduction 

 in both directions, I should not, I think, be justified in 

 here advancing any hypotheses with regard to their cen- 

 tripetal or centrifugal conduction. 



The great difference, gentlemen, which is to be re- 

 marked in regard to the functions of individual nerves, 

 cannot as yet be referred so much to any difference of 

 structure in them, as to the peculiarity of the structures 

 with which the nerve is connected. Thus on the one 

 hand the special function of the central organ from 

 which the nerve proceeds, and on the other, the special 

 nature of its distal termination, afford a clue to its own 

 specific functions. 



With reference to the terminations which the nerves 

 present at their peripheral extremities, histology has, I 

 should say, in the course of the last few years celebrated 

 its most brilliant triumphs. Previously it was, as you 

 well know, a matter of dispute whether the nerves ended 

 in loops or in plexuses, or whether their terminations 

 were free, and the one or the other opinion was held 

 with equal exclusiveness. Now, we have examples of 

 most of these modes of termination, but the fewest of 

 that form which was for a time regarded as the regular 

 one, namely the termination in loops. 



The most manifest form of termination, though the 

 one whose functions are, singularly enough, even now the 

 least known, is that in the so-called Pacinian or Vaterian* 

 bodies organs, concerning the import of which we are 

 still unable to make any statement. They are found in 

 man comparatively most marked in the adipose tissue 

 of the ends of the fingers, but also in tolerably large 



* Vater was professor at Wittenberg, and died in 1751. 



