46 
MR. C. S. SHERliJNaTON OR OET-LYIRO 
Note. 
Mention of any out-lying cells in the posterior column is not .to be found in the 
classical monographs by Clarke, Stilling, Frommann, Deiters and Max Schultze, 
Krause, &c., nor in the recent admirable papers by Lissauer, Bechterew, Dark- 
SCHEWITZ, Mott, and v. Lenhossek. One reference, however, does occur in a second 
and very recent paper by M. v, Lenhossek, in the ‘ Archiv f. mikrosk. Anatomie ’ of 
November (vol. 34, II., 1889). At the end of a paragraph, in which the writer there 
contends for a direct connection between Clarke’s column and the j)osterior roots, 
he clearly mentions the fact of the existence of isolated eells in the posterior column. 
To quote his words ; “ in der Kegel findet man frei gewordenen Zellen an der Grenze 
zwischen grauer und weisser Substanz (he is speaking of Clarke’s eolumn), dock 
beo’esfnet man denselben zuweilen in der Einstrahlungszone der Burdach’schen 
Strange ; ja, sie rlicken bin und wdeder fast bis zur Eintrittstelie der Hinterwurzeln, 
halten sich in Lage, auch Ptichtung ihrer Achse, an den Hinterwurzelfasern.” My 
description above was v/ritten before I had read this sentence in Lenhossek’s admirable 
and rather lengthy article. 
Addendum. 
(June 14, 1890.) 
Out-lying nerve-cells, similar to those above described existing along the root-fibre 
bundles in the external posterior column of the lumbar and thoracic regions of the 
cord, occur in the region of the bulb imbedded in the funiculus cuneatus. In this 
situation they lie sometimes two or three together, with the long axis of the cell in 
the frontal plane, and close to or upon bundles of nerve-fibres of large calibre (posterior 
root-fibres), which pass through the funiculus on their way to reach the grey matter 
of the nucleus. The similarity of tliese out-lying cells to the out-lying cells of the 
jiosterior root-zone of the cord is too striking to escape attention. The funiculus 
cuneatus is, of course, equivalent in the bulb to the external posterior column in the 
cord ; it undoubtedly contains an area which corresponds to the posterior root-zone of 
the spinal posterior column. The out-lying cells in the funiculus cuneatus appear, in 
point of position, to hold the same relation to the inner mass of the nucleus cuneatus 
as is held by the out-lying cells in the external posterior column of the lumbo-thoracic 
cord to the vesicular column of Clarke. This seems to indicate that in the bulb the 
homologue of the vesicular column of Clarke is to be found in the cuneate nucleus. 
It will, perhaps, be urged against this that the upper end of the vesicular column of 
Clarke is the vagus nucleus (Boss, Hill, Gaskell). But although a group of cells 
