1889-90.] Dr A. Bruce on the Inferior Olivary Body. 25 
the restiform body of the opposite side without entering either 
olive. 
Ross ( Diseases of Nervous System) and Ferrier ( Functions of the 
Brain, 2nd edition) adopt the views of Deiters and Meynert. 
The recent researches of Edinger,* Flechsig, Bechterew (with 
which I fully agree, on the ground of my own observations in 
my Thesis for the degree of M.D.), show the view of Deiters, with 
regard to the termination in the olive of those internal arcuate fibres 
which originate in the nuclei of the posterior columns, to be 
untenable. 
If one examines transverse sections of the medulla oblongata of a 
human embryo between the ages of six and eight months which have 
been stained with hsematoxylin after, the method of Weigert, one 
finds that the fibres from the olive to the restiform body are not 
yet invested with myeline, while those internal arcuate fibres which 
form the cuneate and clavate nuclei are fully medullated. An 
uncomplicated view of their course can thus be obtained ; and it is 
beyond any doubt that none of these fibres terminate in the olive of 
the same side, that all the fibres of this system which enter the olive 
merely pass through its substance, and terminate in the interolivary 
stratum or fillet of the opposite side. 
Flechsig ( Plan des menschlichen Gehirns) was at one time of 
opinion that the larger part, or two-thirds of the interolivary 
stratum or fillet, entered the olive; but it would appear that he no 
longer maintains this view, and though there seems to be some 
pathological evidence in its favour (see the case of Meyer, Arch. f. 
Psych., vol. xiii.), the examination of embryonic brains, especially 
in longitudinal sections, points to the absence of any such 
connection. 
There is as yet no evidence that any part of the fibres of the 
spinal cord terminate in the olive, though that may well be the 
case. 
In 1885 Bechterew {Neurol. CentraTbl., 1885, p. 194) discovered 
in the brains of infants of the age of one month a tract passing from 
the olive in a direction upwards towards the brain, which had been 
regarded erroneously by Stilling as a continuation of the posterior 
* Edinger, Neurol. Centralblatt, 1885, p. 73. See also Spitzka’s paper, 
Medical Record, 1884, vol. xxvi., Nos. 15-18. 
