274 Drs. Mott and Halliburton and Mr. Edmunds. [June 12, 



found no evidence of the appearance of new nerve-fibres in nerves which 

 have been transplanted into the peritoneal cavity. Such nerves may either 

 undergo absorption, or be replaced by that variety of tissue which is found 

 replacing nervous tissue proper in the distal segment of a divided nerve. 



Fig. 4. — Transverse section of strand of catgut which has become surrounded by a 

 sheath of connective tissue, after being transplanted beneath the peritoneal coat 

 of the stomach, as described in the text. 



It is at least remarkable that the nerves transplanted by Kennedy into a 

 position where they were entirely dependent on soakage of lymph for 

 nourishment until a blood-supply had reached them should have been so 

 specially fortunate in their powers of regeneration as to produce well- 

 developed medullary sheaths and nodes of Kanvier. It is difficult to 

 understand on the autogenetic theory why so few of the degenerated fibres 

 should regenerate in this way, for all were under precisely the same con- 

 ditions. Such an occurrence is easy to account for, if our own view is 

 adopted that the well-formed fibres seen had grown into the transplanted 

 nerve from nerve-fibres cut through in the operation. 



(3) Experiments on the Degeneration of Regenerated Fibres. 



These experiments were suggested to us by Professor Gotch, and have 

 been performed once on the monkey and twice on cats. A large nerve (the 

 ulnar in the case of the monkey, the sciatic in the case of the cats) was 

 divided and the ends sutured together with sterilised silk. After a sufficient 



