904 
PEOFESSOE BEALE ON THE DISTEIBHTION OP NEE7ES 
fibres which have hitherto been regarded as belonging to connective tissue, but which 
difier from very fine yellow elastic fibres in their granular appearance, in their mode of 
branching and the curves which they form, in refractive power, and in the alteration 
resulting from the prolonged action of dilute acetic acid*. 
It seems quite possible^ that complete nervous circuits may exist, and the delicate fibres 
of the plexus may be connected with delicate fibres from the branches of neiTe-fibres 
ramifying in the connective tissue. Although nuclei (connective-tissue corpuscles) 
appear to be connected with the nerves in great number, it by no means foUows that all 
these are instrumental to the action of the nervous system f. The nerve-currents would 
of course pursue the shortest route, and as the position of the fibres must become altered 
in consequence of the development of new ones, some would no longer be traversed 
by the nerve-cm'rent. The nuclei would slowly alter but would still retain a certain 
anatomical connexion with the fibres, and might still absorb a certain amormt of nutrient 
matter and slowly produce a low form of fibrous tissue. 
Many fine bundles of fibres, and fibres which appear to be single, with nuclei con- 
nected with them at short intervals, may be seen ramifying in the indefinite connective 
tissue in all parts of the frog. The fine fibres are generally considered to be fibres of 
yellow elastic tissue, and the corpuscles are all included under the head of ‘ connective^ 
tissue corpuscles’. These fibres may be readily followed (especially on the palate, 
cornea, and bladder) to undoubted nerve-fibres, and it would not be possible to distiu- 
guish one of these fibres from the fibre which is the direct continuation of the dark- 
bordered nerve-fibre in muscle. I am therefore forced to conclude either that nerves 
terminate in ‘ connective-tissue fibres,’ or that this form of connective tissue itself 
results from changes occurring in nerve-fibres and the nuclei or cells which take part 
in their formation. As this form of connective tissue always exists where neiu e-fibres 
are distributed — as it increases in quantity, but at the same time becomes more con- 
densed as the tissue advances in age — as the meshes formed are smaller and less regular' 
as we recede /rom the surface where nerves ramify — as the so-called fibres of yellow 
elastic tissue in connexion with the nerves become altered like the nerves themselves by 
the slow action of acetic acid, while other fibres more distant do not undergo this 
change, and as these facts have been observed, not in one organ or tissue, but in very 
many (palate, tongue, cornea, mesentery and other parts of the abdominal connective 
tissue, muscle, skin, pale muscular fibre), as well as in different animals, I venture to 
conclude that this so-called connective tissue lying immediately beneath sensitive surfaces, 
and around the elementary fibres of voluntary muscle, and in other situations where 
nerves are abundantly distributed, is not a tissue specially formed as a medium for con- 
* See some observations on the distribution of nerves to tbe mucous membrane of the epiglottis of man 
in No. XII. of the ‘ Archives of Medicine.’ 
t Kuhxe has recently stated that the nerve-fibres are connected with the connective-tissue corpuscles of 
the cornea ; but I have some specimens which demonstrate that this view is erroneous. The nerve-tissue 
is always distinct from other tissues, and possesses its own masses of germinal matter or nuclei of formation. 
