A Contribution on the Nerve Terminations

Some years ago, the writers undertook a series of researches on the innervation of muscular tissues in the belief that many of the points still in dispute concerning the termination of the nerve fibers and their relation to the elements of the tissue might receive further elucidation, if, in such investigation, the nerve fibers were stained differentially by means of a method or methods which would admit of the making of thin sections of the tissues to be studied. The method selected was the intra-vitam methylen blue method, using ammonium picrate and am-monium molybdate as fixatives. We have thus far presented abservations on the motor endings in voluntary muscle, heart muscle and involuntary muscle, sensory ending in the neuro-muscular spindles, sensory ending in the extrinsic eye muscles of the rabbit, and sensory endings in the tendons of the extrin-sic eye muscles of the cat. In the present contribution it is our aim to give the results of extended observations on the ending of nerves in the neuro-tendinous end-organs which, both from an anatomic and physi-ologic standpoint, must be and are regarded as end-organs associated functionally with muscular tissues. This investigation embraces observations made on neuro-tendinous end-organs of