196 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
He does not mean, however, to commit himself to a Lamarckian theory, 
believing that the facts may be equally well interpreted in terms of 
selection. There is no reference in the paper to Dr. D. Hepburn’s work 
'on the papillary ridges of monkeys and men (1895) — an omission which 
is surely inadvertent. 
j3. Histology. 
Text-Book on the Cell.* — M. L. F. Henneguy has published a series 
of lectures on the cell, the result being a volume which must take its 
jplace beside the similar works of Hertwig, Bergh, and Wilson. 
Giant Ganglion-Cells in Spinal Cord of Flat-Fishes.| — Mr. U. 
Dahlgren finds a system of giant ganglion-cells in the spinal cord of 
Paralichthys dentatus, P. oblongus, Bothns maculatus , Plcuronectes cimeri- 
canus , and other flat-fishes. It consists of a row of very large nerve-cells 
in the median dorsal fissure and of their processes, which pass backwards 
and form an isolated fibre tract on the mesial side of each dorsal horn. 
They are the first ganglion-cells to become diiferentiated in the embryo 
flat-fish ; they are not preceded or accompanied by a really transient 
apparatus, and are the only large nerve-cells that appear in the dorsal 
median fissure. It is suggested that these cells are connected with the 
sense-organs of the dorsal fin, and that they may be the same as the 
transient ganglion-cells in the embryos of Salmo, Baja , &c. 
Structure of Cerebral Cortex and Function of Herve-Cell Pro- 
cesses.:]: — Dr. K. Schaffer describes the superficial nerve-cells in the 
brain, and the relations of the axons and their collaterals. He maintains 
— (1) that nervous stimulus is always propagated only through the 
axons and their collaterals, the dendrites being nutritive ; and (2) that 
impulse from a cell passes by the axons, while stimulus to a cell passes 
by those collaterals whose contact-relations enable them to function as 
receptive structures. 
A Centrosome Artifact in Herve-Cells.§ — Dr. U. Dahlgren describes 
-certain appearances in the spinal ganglion-cells of the dog, which looked 
exceedingly like centrospheres and centrosomes, but which candid exa- 
mination showed to be artificial and due to some structural change pro- 
duced by crystals of sublimate. 
Sensory Organs of the Lateral Line.|j — Dr. F. S. Bunker has studied 
these in the bull-head, Ameiurus nebulosus Le Sueur. At the base of the 
sensory organs, outside the basement membrane, the nerve-fibres lose 
their medullary sheath, branch repeatedly, and spread out over the whole 
bottom and sides of the organ. They pierce the basement membrane in 
jmany places, and rise, still branching, to the bases of the sensory cells, 
around which they intertwine in a basket-like network, from which 
fibrillations rise still higher, nearly to the free border of the organ. 
Other fibres take no part in this basket-like plexus, but extend upwards, 
still branching, in close apposition to the sensory cells. The latter end 
in bristles, and are in the strictest sense nerve-elements conforming to 
.the type of anaxionic neurons. 
* ‘ Lemons sur la cellule, morpliologie et reproduction,’ 8vo, Paris, 541 pp., 3G2 figs. 
t Anat. Anzeig., xiii. (1897) pp. 281-93 (4 figs.). 
X Arch. f. Mikr. Anat., xlviii. (1897) pp. 550-72 (2 pis.). 
Anat. Anzeig., xiii. (1897) pp. 149-51 (2 figs.). || Tom. cit , pp. 25G-G0. 
