144 



Mr. C. S. Sherrington. On outlying [Jan. 30, 



These experiments indicate that, whereas training- walls in the 

 upper estuary would be injurious, owing to the resulting accretion, 

 training walls in the lower estuary would improve the depth of the 

 outlet channel ; and that such training walls, combined with 

 dredging, offer the best prospect of forming a direct stable, and 

 deepened channel across the bar. 



II. " On outlying Nerve-cells in the Mammalian Spinal Cord." 

 By Ch. S. Sherrington, M.A., M.B., &c. Communicated 

 by Professor M. Foster, Sec. R.S. Received January 30, 

 1890. 



(Abstract.) 



Gaskell has shown* that in the cord of the alligator scattered nerve- 

 cells are to be seen at the periphery of the lateral column. Although 

 nerve-cells appear to be absent from that position in the spinal cord 

 of Mammalia as represented by the rabbit, cat, dog, calf, monkey, 

 and man, yet there are in these animals isolated nerve-cells present 

 in the white matter of the cord, not only in the deeper portions of the 

 lateral column, but in the anterior and posterior columns as well. 



In the anterior columns occasional nerve-cells, of the multipolar 

 kind, lie among those fibre-bundles which pass between the deeper 

 mesial border of the anterior horn and the anterior commissure at 

 the base of the anterior fissure. They, in the instances observed, are 

 smaller than the large cells characteristic of the anterior horn, and 

 lie with two of the processes directed parallel with the horizontal 

 transverse fibres among which they are placed. Such cells have been 

 observed in the human cord and in the cord of the dog and bonnet 

 monkey. 



In the lateral column, of the spinal cord of man and the other 

 animals named#above, it is common to find outlying members of the 

 group of small cells of the lateral horn, Clarke's tractus intermedio- 

 lateralis, situated in the white matter, distinctly beyond the limits of 

 the grey. Some outlying cells here are placed at a great distance 

 from the grey. These are all probably to be considered members of 

 the intermedio-lateral group. Their similarity to those cells in form 

 and size is striking. They are generally placed upon, or at least in 

 close connexion with, the fine connective-tissue septa which pass 

 across the white matter. It is probable that the cells are connected 

 with the medullated nerve-fibres running along these septa. The 

 cells are fusiform, with the longer axis parallel to the direction of 

 the nerve-fibres running in the septa. 



In the part of the lateral column adjacent to the lateral reticular 



* ' Proceedings of the Physiological Society,' 1885. 



