TERMINATION OF NERVES OF MAMMALIAN CORNEA. 467 
many cases the nerve-fibril can be traced beyond an apparent 
end-knob. 
In his last paper (’ Archiv f. mikr. Anat./ xvii), however, 
Waldeyer thinks (p. 329) that the reason for his formerly 
maintaining an intraepithelial terminal network lies perhaps 
in the fact that he had chiefiy to deal with the human cornea, 
in which the cement substance becomes readily stained with 
the chloride of gold, and hence the appearance of anastomosis 
is easily accounted for. In the preparations that were the 
basis of my memoir in 1871, and in those of the present 
occasion, the intraepithelial nerves are the only fibres stained 
black with the chloride of gold. The epithelial cells and 
their interstitial substance is unstained, except a faint 
greyish tint in the deepest layer. The nuclei of the 
superficial epithelial cells are just visible, being faintly 
stained violet. I must repeat that in my descriptions of 
the intraepithelial nerves I always had to deal xcitli such 
specimens only. Those in which also the interstitial sub- 
stance of the cells in the superficial layers are distinctly 
stained have always been discarded as unsuitable, since a 
confusion of the interstitial cement substance with fine nerve- 
fibrils is then quite possible. This has been ably urged 
by Cohnhein (1. c., p. 31), and in the drawings of the intra- 
epithelial nerve-fibrils accompanying his memoir (figs. 7 and 
8, plate xii) ; in the figures given by myself in this Journal 
October, 1871, figs. 2, 3, and 4, Plate XIX \ and in ‘ Monthly 
Micro. Journal,’ April, 1872, figs. 5 and 6, plate xiv ; in 
those represented by Hoyer (^Archiv f. mikr. Anat.,’ ix, 
fig. 2, plate xiii,) the unmistakable and conspicuous nature 
and course of these fibrils can at once be recognised. To all 
those who have seen good specimens of the intraepithelial 
nerves it must be evident that, judging from the repre- 
sentation given in Rollett’s fig. 390, 1. c., p. 1136, and in 
Waldeyer’s fig. 21, 1. c., p. 210, both these authors had not 
seen the intraepithelial horizontal nerve-fibrils of the 
superficial layers, and consequently were not in a position to 
judge of their final distribution. 
Following, then, carefully in a horizontal section — the 
anterior free surface being directed upwards and a place being 
selected that comprises only the epithelium — of a well-stained 
and well-reduced gold cornea, the intraepithelial nerve-fibrils, 
after they have passed between the columnar cells, can be 
traced us more or less horizontal fibrils in all layers anterior to 
the deepest columnar cells. The length of these fibrils varies 
very greatly ; some of them are very short, not longer than the 
breadth of two or three epithelial cells, while many others may 
