The healing of nerves.

  • Ballance, Charles A. (Charles Alfred), 1856-1936.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The healing of nerves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    later to send out from their opposite poles fine protoplasmic processes, which gradually increase in length. This appearance is distinct at four weeks (see Plate i6, fig. 6), and still more marked at the end of five weeks (see Plate i6, fig. 9). The process is essentially the same whether the distal segment remains ununited or has been sutured to the proximal. The further development of the neurilemma cell towards the formation of a perfect fibre is seen in Plate 16, fig. 10 (twelve weeks), in which the nuclei are apposed to threads of newly formed myelin (compare Plate 4, fig. 14 of the Weigert series). Finally it is to be observed that an old neurilemma sheath is not replaced by one set but by several sets of new sheaths, each of which corresponds to a newly formed axis-cylinder (see Plate 16, fig. 11). As the neurilemma cell of the old sheath multiplies, its place is taken by a new and numerous generation of cells, each of which is potentially capable of forming a segment of a complete nerve fibre. The more the specimens are studied the more is the conclusion forced upon the mind of the observer that for the regeneration of a peripheral nerve fibre (not only the axis-cylinder, but also the medullary and neurilemma sheaths) the activity of one variety of cell, and one variety only is responsible. That cell is the neurilemma cell. The cellular changes in transplanted nerve The number of experiments with transplanted nerves, although not large , is sufficient to demonstrate clearly the fundamental fact that the cells, and indeed the whole structure, of the graft, play no active part in regeneration beyond that of affording a particularly N