Injuries of nerves and their consequences - Reflex Sympathetic ...

ANATOMY OF NERVES. 21
to which the sensitive nerves are submitted, or that each
corpuscle is a centre of ganglionic matter, — without which
certain impressions cannot originate, a view sustained, to
some extent, by the analogy of some of the special senses,
but contradicted by a host of pathological phenomena.
Their function may possibly be protective, as regards the
nerve ends, but that they have some relation to general
sensibility, or to touch, seems alone clear. — Rauber who
has stated the number of the deep-seated corpuscles of
Pacini at 2142, too small a number for large relations
to sensation— believes them to be the sensory organs as to
the muscles. Vulpian states very justly that except as to
the well-known mesenteric connection between certain
Pacinian bodies and the sympathetic nerve, we have no
clear information as
to the peripheral distribution of this
the
nerve system, nor are we much better instructed in
mode in which nerves terminate on vessel walls, a subject
of daily increasing interest.*
Since the researches of M. Rouget and their general
confirmation by Krause and Kiihne, there is less diflerence
of sentiment as to the motor termination of nerves. The
nerve fibre undergoes division, and each branch on entering
the sarcolemma loses its sheath of Schwann, which
becomes continuous with the sarcolemma. The axis cylinder
alone enters, the medullary matter as in other cases
having previously disappeared. The cylinder axis of the
nerve spreads out over the muscle substance in a granular
mass, which is slightly prominent, and as to the true
nature of which observers have disagreed. According to
Trinchese, and to Rouget's latest researches, the granular
cone, now known as the motor plate, conceals a delicate set
of fine loops or plexuses, which are the true terminations
of the motor nerve. Dr. Beale, however, believes that
* See Duchenne, translated by H. Tibbits, M.D. London, 1871, p. 153.