THE UTRECHT SYMPOSIUM ON THE INNERVATION OF MUSCLE

Abstract

This is an excellent collection of 22 papers presented at an international symposium on the innervation of muscle held at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands), July 17-20. 1957. All of the material in this publication originally appeared in the American Journal of Physical Medicine, Vols. 38 and 39, 1959 and 1960. Dr. Bouman; editor of the above journal, and Dr. Woolf, organizer of the symposium, should be highly commended for their joint efforts in collecting and translating this superb group of papers. Discussions included basic neurophysiologic, histologic, histopathologic, pharmacologic, and biochemical phenomena related to the innervation of muscle in normal and certain abnormal states. Dr. H. A. Meyling, host to the symposium, introduced the histologic study of the innervation of voluntary muscle in a well-written review and discussion. Other excellent histologic presentations included appropriate photomicrographs with discussions of Topography of Terminal Motor Nerve Innervation in Striated Muscles from Stillborn Infants, Structural Organization of the Motor Nerve Endings in the Mammalian Muscle Spindles and Other Striated Muscle Fibers, and Biopsy Studies of the Pathology of the Lower Motor Neuron. These papers were climaxed by a truly superb demonstration of Electron Microscopy of the Motor End Plate and the Neuromuscular Spindle, by Dr. G D. Robertson from Uni¬ versity College in London. In this last paper details of the author's observations are ac¬ companied by excellent diagrammatic and photographic reproductions. Although eight of the papers elucidate various neurophysiologic, electrophysiologic, or pharmacologie aspects of problems in neuromuscular transmission, none of the papers pretend to satisfactorily explain or solve the defects in transmission at the neuromuscular junction that occur in myasthenia gravis. Dr. Nachmannsohn of Columbia University, however, makes