A comparison, now, with Claus’s figures (’78, Taf. II, Figs. 19-21)
will show that, except for the rather unimportant matter of the mucous
cells, which he finds regularly and thickly disposed on each side of
the nerve (’78, Fig. 21), our only essential difference lies in the
matter of sensory cells in the epithelium. His figures show a multitude
of spindle-shaped sensory cells whose central ends are continued in
processes that bend around into the mass of fibres of the nerve. In
his Fig. 20 a relatively small number of nuclei, just one-third as
many, are seen attached nearer to the surface, which represent the
supporting cells. The plan of structure (as shown in his Fig. 20) is an
alternation of (1) supporting cells offering a broad peripheral end to
the surface and having the central end continued as a supporting fibre
to the gelatinous lamella, and (2) spindle-shaped sensory cells with
nuclei at a lower level, which send their peripheral process up between
the supporting cells to the surface, while the central process becomes
continuous with the nerve fibres, often branching into two processes. In
my sections I have not been able to see either a regular alternation of
nuclei at different levels, or central processes which unmistakably bend
round into the nerve fibres. In every case in which I could trace the
central process of a cell clearly it ran to the supporting lamella, and
this whether the nucleus of the cell lay near the surface of the nerve or
deeper down, as in the somewhat spindle-shaped cell seen on the left of
the centre of the nerve in Fig. 47. Of course in many cases the central
process could not be traced in a section, and this leaves room for the
supposition that such were always the sensory cells. From my inability to
demonstrate sensory cells in the nerves of Charybdea, I by no means wish
to deny their existence; for that remains to be proved, or disproved,
by macerations. At any rate, they cannot be so numerous as has been
supposed. The position of the nuclei shows that.
The epithelium of the nerve is said by Claus to be ciliated. It has been
suggested by Schewiakoff that probably in such cases the sensory cells
bear one long cilium, while the supporting cells have many smaller cilia.
Unfortunately, I made no observations upon the ciliation of the nervous
structures of the living animal, and the traces of cilia that are shown
in preparations of preserved material are a poor basis to speculate much
on. Claus considers the sensory cells of the epithelium of the nerve a
special seat of tactile sensation.
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