MICROSCOPY. 567 
demonstrate in a variety of cases, rather than to reason upon the 
observations of others. 
Dr. Klein, on the other hand, by modifying the common method 
of staining by chloride of gold, brings the finest nerve fibres into 
view so clearly that they can be easily studied with powers as low 
_as 250 to 800. The cornea of a rabbit or guinea pig is very 
slightly stained with chloride of gold; and sections cut, with a 
razor, are examined in glycerine. Oblique and horizontal sections 
are examined, and the binocular microscope exhibits easily the 
relation of the different plexuses to each other. Only the nerve 
fibres are colored, but the cells of the epithelium are distinctly 
seen. Dr. Klein confidently claims to demonstrate non-nucleated 
- nerve fibres far finer than the ultimate plexus of Dr. Beale. The 
latter observer admits that his ultimate fibres are compound and 
that the nuclei are somewhat to one side of the main fibre. Dr. 
Klein looks upon all nucleated nerve fibres as sheathed, the nuclei 
belonging to the sheath, and finds no nuclei in the finer and sim- 
pler fibres. By the carmine and glycerine method no more has 
been demonstrated than the plexus of nucleated non-medullate 
nerve fibres ; but with the gold method the existence of non-nucle- 
ated nerve fibres among the epithelial cells is shown with certainty. 
The anatomical continuity of these with the larger nerve trunks 
can be positively seen. 
Dr. Berkart agreed with Dr. Beale in throwing some doubt on the 
Supposed influence of the nervous system on nutrition. Atrophy 
of the muscles, for instance, might be due directly to causes oper- 
ating directly on the muscular tissue, though generally ascribed, 
at present, to the influence of the nerves. The influence of the - 
nerves on secretion was, however, well established in many cases. 
Dr. Murie regarded Dr. Beale’s paper a rare and valuable con- 
tribution to microscopic anatomy. In the rete mirabile of the 
porpoise, we have vessels of considerable size supplied with nerves 
ramifying in a manner similar to those demonstrated on the cap- 
illaries by Dr. Beale in his minute dissections. The electrical 
organ of the torpedo has an arrangement of nerves, visible to the . 
naked eye, much like that described as occurring in the mole’s 
nose. If there was, in the remarkable fish referred to, “a vast 
electrical battery supplied by nervous influence of gigantic power, 
Was it not very probable that the, same kind of thing obtained in 
the arterial capillaries, modified of course to the limited exigencies 
