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XXII. Contributions to the Anatomy of the Central Nervous System in Vertebrate 
Animals. 
By Alfred Sanders, M.R. C.S., F.L.S., late Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy 
at the London Hospital Medical College. 
Communicated by Professor Huxley, Sec. P.S. 
Received May 7, — Read May 23, 1878. 
[Plates 58-65.] 
Parti. — Ichthyopsida. Section 1 . — Pisces. Subsection 1 . —Teleostei. 
Lntroduction. 
Investigations into the histology of the nervous system in Vertebrata, have hitherto 
been chiefly confined to that of the Mammalia, or if applied to the lower members of 
that sub-kingdom, have not been undertaken so much with reference to the mor- 
phological relationship of animals, as to their bearings on physiology and the art of 
medicine. It may be stated in general terms that those who have worked at the 
morphology of the nervous system have not paid much attention to its histology ; and, 
per contra, those who have investigated the histology have neglected its morphological 
bearing. Stieda, however, has investigated the brain in both aspects of the question, 
and Lockhart Clarke has made some reference to the nervous system of the lower 
Vertebrata in his classical investigations, but this bears but a subordinate proportion 
to the whole. Fritsck has recently published a treatise on the histology of the 
central nervous system in Pishes, in which the homology of the various parts is 
especially considered. 
It occurred to me that the proper method of research in such complicated organs as 
the central nervous system, would be to proceed from the more simple to the more 
intricate, and I have selected the Teleostei as a good starting point in the class Pisces, 
as they form a sort of central group from which the other orders diverge either in a 
progressive or in a retrograde direction. 
The species which I have more particularly investigated has been the Grey Mullet 
(Mugil cephalus), and unless the contrary is mentioned, the statements in the 
following pages apply to that species. 
Por a great part of the material used, I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Eisig, 
of the zoological station at Naples, who provided me with living specimens, without 
MDCCCLXXVIII. 5 B 
