Problems of Life and Mind. Second series by George Henry Lewes (best contemporary novels TXT) 📕

the latter point has not, I think, been satisfactorily established, except in the invertebrata, I see no reason whatever to doubt its probability; what seems the least reconcilable with the evidence is the notion that all fibres arise as prolongations from ganglionic cells, instead of arising independently as differentiations from neuroblasts. The reader will observe that my objection to the current view is purely anatomical; for the current view would suit my physiological interpretations equally well, and would be equally irreconcilable with the hypothesis of the cell as the source of Neurility, so long as the identity of structure in the axis cylinder and cell contents is undisputed.

137. The evidence at present stands thus: There are numerous multipolar cells which have no traceable connection with nerve-fibres; and fibres which have no direct connection with multipolar cells. By the first I do not mean the disputed apolar cells, I mean cells in the gray substance of the centres which send off processes that subdivide and terminate as fibrils in the network of the Neuroglia (Figs. 16, 18). It is indeed generally assumed that these have each one process—the axis-cylinder process—which is prolonged as a nerve-fibre; nor would it be prudent to assert that such is never the case; though it would be difficult to distinguish between a fibre which had united with a process and a fibre which was a prolongation of a process, in both cases the neuroplasm being identical. I only urge that the assumption is grounded not on anatomical evidence, but on a supposed necessary postulate. All that can be demonstrated is that some processes terminate in excessively fine fibrils; and occasionally in thousands of specimens processes have been traced into dark-bordered fibres. It is true that they often present appearances which have led to the inference that they did so terminate—appearances so deceptive that Golgi and Arndt independently record observations of unbranched processes having the aspect of axis cylinders being prolonged to a considerable distance (600 μ in one case), yet these were found to terminate not in a dark-bordered fibre, but in a network of fibrils.166

138. While it is thus doubtful whether dark-bordered fibres are always immediately connected with cells, it is demonstrable that multitudes of fibres have only an indirect connection with cells, being developed as outgrowths from other fibres. Dr. Beale considers that in each such outgrowths have their origin in small neuroplasmic masses (his “germinal matter”). That is another question. The fact here to be insisted on is that we often find groups of cells with only two or three fibres, and groups of fibres where very few cells exist. Schröder van der Kolk says that in a sturgeon (Accipenser sturio) weighing 120 pounds he found the spinal cord scarcely thicker than that of a frog; the muscles of this fish are enormous, and its motor nerves abundant; yet these nerves entered the cord by roots no thicker than a pig’s bristle; and in the very little gray matter of the cord there was only a cell here and there found after long search. Are we to suppose that these rare cells were the origins of all the motor and sensory nerves? A similar want of correspondence may be noticed elsewhere. Thus in the spinal cord of the Lamprey my preparations show very few cells in any of the sections, and numerous sections show none at all. Stieda counted only eight to ten cells in each horn of some osseous fishes, except at the places where the spinal roots emerged. In the eel and cod he found parts of the cord quite free from cells, and in other parts found two, three, never more than ten. In birds he counted from twenty-five to thirty. Particular attention is called to this fact of the eel’s cord being thus deficient, because every one knows the energetic reflex action of that cord, each separate segment of which responds to peripheral stimulation.

It may indeed be urged that these few cells were the origin of all the fibres, the latter having multiplied by the well-known process of subdivision; and in support of this view the fact may be cited of the colossal fibres of the electric fishes, each of which divides into five-and-twenty fibres, and in the electric eel each fibre is said by Max Schultze to divide into a million of fibrils. But I interpret this fact otherwise. It seems to me to prove nothing more than that the neuroplasm has differentiated into few cells and many fibres. And my opinion is grounded on the evidence of Development, presently to be adduced. If we find (and this we do find) fibres making their appearance anywhere before multipolar cells appear, the question is settled.

139. Dr. Beale regards the large caudate cells of the centres as different organites from the oval and pyriform cells, and thinks they are probably stations through which fibres having different origins merely pass, and change their directions; and Max Schultze says that no single fibril has been found to have a central origin; every fibril arises at the periphery, and passes through a cell, which is thus crossed by different fibrils.167 (Comp. Fig. 17.)

The teaching of Development is on this point of supreme importance. Unhappily there has not yet been a sufficient collection of systematic observations to enable us to speak very confidently as to the successive stages, but some negative evidence there is. The changes take place with great rapidity, and the earliest stages have hardly been observed at all. Although for several successive years I watched the development of tadpoles, the difficulties were so great, and the appearances so perplexing, that the only benefit I derived was that of being able the better to understand the more successful investigations of others. Four or five days after fecundation is the earliest period of which I have any recorded observation; at this period the cerebral substance appeared as a finely granular matter, having numerous lines of segmentation marking it off into somewhat spherical and oval masses, interspersed with large granules and fat globules. Here and there hyaline substance appeared between the segments. Similar observations have since been recorded by Charles Robin in the earliest stages of the Triton.168 He says that when the external gills presented their first indications, nuclei appeared, each surrounded by a rim of hyaline substance, from which a pale filament was prolonged at one end, sometimes one at both ends, and this filament subdivided as it grew in length until it had all the appearance of an axis cylinder. This, however, he says, is a striation, not a fibrillation; he refuses to admit that the axis cylinder is a bundle of fibrils. He further notices the simultaneous appearance of amorphous substance; and as this is several days before there is any trace of a pia mater, or proper connective tissue, he urges this among the many considerations which should prevent the identification of neuroglia with connective tissue.

In a very young embryo of a mole (I could not determine its age) the cortex of the hemispheres showed granular amorphous substance, in which were embedded spherical masses of somewhat paler color, which had no nuclei, and were therefore not cells. Besides these, there were nucleated masses (apolar cells, therefore) and more developed cells, unipolar, bipolar, and tripolar. Not a trace of a nerve-fibre was visible. In agreement with this are the observations of Masius and Van Lair, who cut out a portion of the spinal cord in a frog, and observed the regenerated tissue after the lapse of a month. It contained apolar, bipolar, and multipolar cells, together with “corpuscles without processes, for the most part larger than the cells, and appearing to be mere agglomerations of granules,”—these latter I suppose to have been what I describe as segmentations of the undeveloped substance. Gray fibres, with a few varicose fibres, also appeared.169

140. The admirable investigations of Franz Boll have given these observations a new significance. He finds in the cerebral substance of the chick on the third or fourth day of incubation a well-marked separation between the neuroglia and nerve-tissue proper. Fig. 24, A, represents three nerve-cells, each with its nucleus and nucleolus, and each surrounded with its layer of neuroplasm. The other four masses he regards as nuclei of connective tissue. Three days later the distinction between the two is more marked (Fig. 24, B). Not only have the nerve-cells acquired an increase of neuroplasm, they also present indications of their future processes, which at the twelfth day are varicose (Fig. 24, C). (All this while the connective corpuscles remain unchanged.) Although Boll was unable to trace one of these processes into nerve-fibres, he has little doubt that they do ultimately become (unite with?) axis cylinders.