The œsophageal lobes (Tritocerebrum) (Figs. 249, 250).—From this region the labrum and viscera are innervated, the nerves to the latter being called the visceral, sympathetic, or stomatogastric system. As Viallanes remarks, though plainly situated in front of the mouth, they are in fact post-œsophageal centres. The two lobes are situated far apart, and are connected by a bundle of fibres passing behind the œsophagus, called the transverse commissure of the œsophageal ring (Lienard). The œsophageal ganglia, besides giving rise to the labral nerves, also give origin to the root of the frontal ganglion.
c. Histological elements of the brain
The brain and other ganglia are composed of two kinds of tissue.
1. The outer slightly darker, usually pale grayish white portion consists of cortical or ganglion-cells differing in size. This portion is stained red by carmine, the cells composing it readily taking the stain.
The large ganglion cells (represented in Figs. 252 and 253) are oval, and send off usually a single nerve-fibre; they have a thin fibrous cell-wall, and the contents are finely granular. The nucleus is very large, often one-half the diameter of the entire cell, and is composed of large round refractive granules, usually concealing the nucleolus.
2. The medullary or inner part of the brain consists of matter which remains white or unstained after the preparation has remained thoroughly exposed to the action of the carmine. It consists of minute granules and interlacing fibres. The latter often forms a fine irregular network inclosing masses of finely granulated nerve matter.
This is called by Dietl “marksubstanz.” Leydig, in his Vom Bau des thierischen Körpers, p. 89, thus refers to it:—
“In the brain and ventral ganglia of the leech, of insects, and in the brain of the gastropods (Schnecken) I observe that the stalks (stiele) of the ganglion-cells in nowise immediately arise as nerve-fibres, but are planted in a molecular mass or punktsubstanz, situated in the centre of the ganglion, and merged with this substance. It follows, from what I have seen, that there is no doubt that the origin of the nerve-fibres first takes place from this central punktsubstanz.”
“This relation is the rule. But there also occur in the nerve-centres of the invertebrates single, definitely situated ganglion-cells, whose continuations become nerve-fibres without the intervention of a superadded punktsubstanz.” We may, with Kenyon, call it the fibrillar substance.
Leydig subsequently (p. 91) further describes this fibrillar substance, stating that the granules composing it form a reticulated mass of fibrillæ, or, in other words, a tangled web of very fine fibres:—