THE SYMPATHETIC ENDFORMATION, ITS SYNAPTOLOGY, THE INTERSTITIAL CELLS, THE PERITERMINAL NETWORK, AND ITS BEARING ON THE NEURONE THEORY. DISCUSSION AND CRITIQUE

Abstract

The author discusses the different problems of the anatomy of the nervous elements. He treats the problem of the synapses between the different nervous elements and also between the nervous elements and the effector cells, the problem of the connection of the nervous elements with each other and with elements of other origin, and of the sympathetic endformation, culminating in the central problem of the neurone theory, from a more modern point of view. In the same way the inadequancy of the classical cell-theory and the histological evidence of a connection of the nervous elements with each other and with the effector cells by living changeable substance, in which the delicate functions of the synapses can be localized, is discussed. The so-called interstitial cells, the only elements of which even the adherents of the neurone theory admitted form a syncytium, and which lie at the end of the sympatnetic endformation as a connecting link between the nervous endformation and the effector cells, are discussed. They are shown to be of primary importance for the transferring and the remoulding of the nervous stimulus as a region where the humoral transfer of the stimulus takes place, the region where the stimulus is remoulded, the synaptic field. Thus the interstitial cells are compared with the primitive ganglion cells of the invertebrates, with the sympathetic cells of the enteric plexus of Amphioxus and the "single cells" of the sympathetic plexus of the lower vertebrates. Finally the interstitial cells are compared with the elements of the core of the sensory corpuscles and with distinct psrts of the motor endplate. The facts supporting this suggestion are summarily indicated. The various critics are answered and their arguments are discussed, and subjects of future research suggested. The problem of the interstitial cells and of the synapses is put into the foreground and into the center of future discussion. The glomeruli of the cerebellum are described as an instance of a large and complicated synaptical formation in which is present a distinct collaboration of nervous and glious elements. The ground-substance of the glomeruli is living substance with a periterminal network connecting the neurofibrillar end-ramifications of the nerves entering the glomerulus, both in the glomeruli olfactorii (Landau) and the glomeruli cerebellosi (Boeke).