Regeneration of nerves / by F.W. Mott, W.D. Halliburton and Arthur Edmonds.

  • Frederick Walker Mott
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Regeneration of nerves / by F.W. Mott, W.D. Halliburton and Arthur Edmonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/38 page 260
    Since we commenced our work, the subject has risen into considerable prominence, and numerous papers have been published on the question. Some investigators, like Purves Stewart, and Ballance,* in this country, and Bethel in Germany, have advanced the view that the new nerve-fibres have a peripheral origin, while others, like Langley and Anderson,! and S. Bamon Cajal,§ have defended the older Wallerian doctrine. In CajaTs paper a very complete bibliography of the large number of investigations devoted to the enquiry is also given. We ventured to suggest in the preliminary notice of our work that the manifest activity of the neurilemmal cells is related in some degree, pro- bably nutritionally, to the successful repair of a divided nerve, for in situations like the central nervous system, where the neurilemma does not exist, not only is the removal of degenerated myelin a very slow process, but, as is well known, regeneration does not occur. When the nerve is regenerated, and conducts impulses, the elongating strands of neurilemmal cells are seen to be situated outside the new axis cylinder, and in longitudinal view the latter is thus frequently concealed; but on transverse section the axis cylinder is seen to be quite distinct and separate within this sheath, although the neurilemmal nuclei retain an abnormal thickness for some time.|| The idea that the sheath is nutritive has been advanced in a somewhat modified form more recently by Graham Kerr.H He points out that there are three main views regarding the development of motor nerves in vertebrata:— 1. Each nerve-fibre develops as an independent outgrowth from a ganglion cell, which gradually grows outwards and finally becomes united to its special muscle. This view is associated especially with the name of His, and is favoured by the majority of embryologists. 2. The nerve trunk is regarded as multicellular in origin, and consists at first of a chain of cells, in the substance of which the nerve-fibres are developed later as fine strands passing continuously from one cell body to * ‘ The Healing of Nerves/ Macmillan and Co., 1901. t ‘Neurol. Centralbl./ January, 1902, p. 60; ‘ Allgemeine Anatomie und Physiologic des Nervensystems/ Leipzig, 1903. J ‘ Journ. of Physiology,’ vol. 31, p. 418 (1904). § “ Mecanismo de la regeneracion de los Nervios/’ ‘ Tra'bajos del Laboratio de investigaciones biologicas de la Universidad de Madrid/ vol. 4, pp. 119—210 (1905) ; “ Mecanisme de la Regeneration du nerf,” ‘ Compt. rend. Soc. de Biol./ vol. 59, p. 420 ; “ Critique de la theorie de l’autoregeneration,” ibid., p. 422. || This is well illustrated in fig. 30, p. 464, of our ‘Phil. Trans.’ paper. “On some Points in the Early Development of Motor Nerve Trunks and Myotonies in Lepidosiren,” by J. Graham Kerr, ‘Roy. Soc. Edin, Trans./ vol. 41, pp. 121—128 (1904).
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