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XXVII. On the Distribution of Nerves to the Elementary Fibres of Striped Muscle. By 
Liojtel S. Beale, M.B,^ F.B.S., Professor of Physiology and of General and Morbid 
Anatomy in Kings College, London ; Physician to King's College Hospital. 
Eeceived June 19, — Bead June 21, 1860. 
No branch of minute anatomy has received a larger share of attention than the anatomy 
of striped muscle, and probably no one point has been more carefully investigated than 
the distribution of nerve-fibres to this important tissue. Very difierent conclusions 
have been arrived at, and the various questions at issue have not yet been determined 
satisfactorily. For the difierent views entertained with reference to the mode of termi- 
nation of nerve-fibres I must refer to the treatises on minute anatomy, and especially to 
Professor Kollikbr’s work just published, where a summary of the results of numerous 
investigations 'will be found. 
Kuhne’s Observations. 
The most recent observations are probably those of Kuhjve, who states that the nerve- 
fibre can be traced up to the sarcolemma. He concludes, with some other observers, that 
in the muscles of insects the axis cylinder of the nerve-fibre penetrates this transparent 
structure, and is connected with the rows of nuclei which are imbedded in the substance 
of the muscular fibre and lie amongst the fibrillee *. As will be observed by reference 
to Kuhne’s drawings, these points are very indistinctly, and, if I may so say, diffidently 
represented. Like KtiiiNE himself, I have quite failed to demonstrate in vertebrate 
animals the arrangement he described in insects. It may be remarked that nuclei 
amongst the fibrillse are very abundant in some fishes and reptiles (especially the frog) 
whose muscles are sparingly supplied with nerves, while in the muscular fibre of many 
birds and mammalia which are very abundantly supplied, not a single nucleus can be 
demonstrated in the interior of the fibre. It seems hardly likely that the relation 
between the nerves and the contractile elements of the tissue should be closer in these 
cold-blooded, and comparatively inactive vertebrata, than in birds and mammals. The 
nuclei amongst the fibrillee of the muscles of vertebrate animals are clearly not con- 
nected with nerves f. 
♦ TJntersucliimgeii iiber Bewegungen und Veranderungen der contraktilen Substanzen. Eeicheex and 
Dubois Eetmoud’s (formerly Muliee’s) Arcbiv, 1860. 
t Soon after this paper was read, I investigated tbe arrangement of the nerves distributed to the muscles 
of the larva of the common blow-fly and the perfect insect, and I have arrived at the conclusion that the 
nerves do not penetrate into the interior of the muscle, but are connected with some very large spindle- 
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