348 
NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
The Termination of the Nerves in the Striated Muscles . — The termi- 
nation of tlie nerves in striated muscles lias given rise, in recent times, 
to numerous researclies, which, notwithstanding all the interest 
which they present, have not yet cast a complete light on this part of 
science. It was thought, for instance, that the termination of the 
sensitive nerves in the muscles had been discovered ; but these 
results, due to defective researches, cannot be considered as correct. 
Moreover, all the efforts which have been made to find intermediate 
forms between the terminations in plates and the motor termination 
in the frog, have remained without success. 
The process of colouring the nerves by means of chloride of gold, 
recently communicated by M. L. Eauvier,^ having furnished me with an 
excellent and certain method for studying the nerve terminations, I 
have undertaken, with this double object, a series of researches, 
which have led me to some new results. 
1st. The nervous fibres without myeline which are found in the 
thin muscles of the frog, as, for example, in the thoracic cutaneous 
muscle, and which had been regarded hitherto as sensitive fibres, do 
not belong to the muscle properly speaking, but to its aponeurosis. 
These fibres, arising from the intramuscular nerves, form in the 
aponeuroses a network of large meshes. Their terminations are 
identical with the nerve terminations which are found in the cornea. 
It is evident from their microscopic structure, as well as from 
their anatomical relations, that these nerves of the aponeuroses ought 
to be considered as centripetal nerves, starting from the muscle. 
The necessity of admitting the existence of these nerves is insisted on 
in a work which I have recently published. 
Nerve-fibres similar to those which I have just pointed out in 
the frog, are also met with in the aponeuroses of other animals. 
2nd. I have found it quite impossible to prove in the dissociated 
muscles of the frog, and of some other species of animals (tortoise, 
triton, lizard, snake, and rabbit), the presence of nerve-fibres without 
myeline, other than those which belong to the vascular or aponeurotic 
nerves, and the presence of nerve terminations, other than the motor 
terminations. 
3rd. I have, on the contrary, been able to find in several species 
of animals new forms of nerve terminations, which constitute inter- 
mediaries between the motor termination, as it is found in the frog, 
and the terminal plates. 
I have proved the existence of terminations of this kind in the 
tortoise, the triton, the salamander, the lizard, and the snake. In the 
three first named, these terminations are the only ones which we are 
able to find, whilst in the snake and the lizard they are found beside 
the terminal jfiates, chiefly in the young muscular fibres. 
The most simple form of these terminations is shown in the 
tortoise; nerve-fibres, destitute of myeline, ramify without anasto- 
mosing, and terminate on the muscular fasciculi, by branches which 
sometimes are smooth, but which most often are moniliform, or 
surrounded by grains deeply coloured by the gold. These grains, 
* See p. 250. 
