Paper, 'The electric organ of the skate: Note on an electric centre in the spinal cord' by J [James] Cossar Ewart

Description

Ewart writes: 'Having considered the development and structure of the electric organ of the Skate, it appeared to me desirable, by way of making my work more complete, to reinvestigate the nervous apparatus of the organ, and more especially to ascertain whether, as in Torpedo and Gymnotus, there is an electric centre. In Torpedo the electric organs are developed from a limited number of myotomes, and innervated by afferent fibres, belonging to a limited number of cranial nerves, which proceed from two large collections of cells—the electric lobes—situated in the region of the medulla. In Gymnotus the nerves for the electric organs proceed from two well-marked cellular tracts which extend along the greater length of the spinal cord, one at each side of the central canal.'

Annotations in pencil and ink. Includes one page of figures of motor cells of the Torpedo, Gymnotus and Raia compared with the motor cells of a mammal.

Subject: Neuroscience / Ichthyology

Received 15 March 1893 / 20 March 1893. Read Communicated by William Turner.

A version of this paper was published in volume 53 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'The electric organ of the skate: Note on an electric centre in the spinal cord'.

Reference number

PP/21/10

Earliest possible date

1893

Physical description

Ink and graphite pencil on paper

Page extent

9 pages

Format

Manuscript
Drawing