Abstract
Max Schultze's Archiv für Mikroskop Anatomie, Band vi. Heft. 2, 1870, is a paper by M. J. C. Eberth on the termination of the Cutaneous Nerves. Eberth's experiments were undertaken upon the skin of man, of rabbits, guinea-pigs, dogs, and cats, but chiefly on that of man and of Albino rabbits; the processes of pigment cells in the other animals often closely resembling nerves when stained with gold chloride. The strength of the solution that was used varied from ½ to 1 per cent., in which portions of skin were allowed to soak for from ¼ to 4 hours. In the cutis of man the nerves form first a rich web of dark-edged fasciculi, which break up into a plexus of fine fibrils and small fasciculi of fibrils. These soon lose their medullary sheath, and enter more or less vertically into the papillæ in the form of fine axis cylinders with fusiform nuclei lying upon them. He particularly insists that the final finest terminations which can be followed to the attached surface of the epithelium are free and do not form a plexus. He corroborates the statements of Langerhans respecting the presence of peculiar cells in the deeper parts of the epidermis of stellate and fusiform shape; often with a distinct nucleus. They blacken with chloride of gold; but neither Eberth nor Langerhans have been able to trace their connection with nerves. These cells usually send off from five to eight simple or branched processes towards the surface, but only one or two towards the cutis.
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Scientific Serials. Nature 2, 93 (1870). https://doi.org/10.1038/002093a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/002093a0