SPINAL NERVES, the paired nerves which arise from and pass into the spinal cord (q.v.), and which are distributed to the vari ous muscles of the body and come from the various sense-organs, skin, intestines, bladder, etc. The spinal nerves are so named in contra distinction to the cranial nerves, or those which originate from or pass into the brain itself. From the spinal cord of man 31 pairs of spinal nerves arise. They pass from and enter into the spinal cord and spine through the interver tebral foramina, or openings between the bodies of the vertebrae, the motor part of the nerve passing out in front, the sensory part coming in from behind. Eight pairs are cervical; 12 are dorsal nerves, also named thoracic; five are lumbar, five sacral and one coccygeal. Each spinal nerve is formed from two•portions, an anterior or motor, and a posterior or sensory. The posterior root has a nerve-mass or gan glion, which is wanting in the anterior. The fibres of the anterior roots arc motor in na ture; that is to say, impulses travel by these roots outward from the cord or brain to the body. The fibres of the posterior roots are sensory: impulses are conveyed by these fibres to the cord or brain. The anterior and pos terior fibres unite just beyond the nervous ganglion to form a single nerve-trunk, in which the two sets of fibres are indistinguish able. See ANATOMY; BRAIN; NERVOUS SYSTEM, EVOLUTION OF THE; SPINAL CORD. • a name originally ap plied to an European species of Ettonyinus, shrubs belonging to the Celastracece. The
American species have more or less four-an gled and winged stems, with petioled entire or serrate leaves and regulas, perfect four to five merous flowers in axillary cymes. They open in early summer and are small and inconspicu ous and greenish or purplish in color; they are succeeded, however, by very brilliant fruits or pods, which are several-celled, lobed or angled and which, when mature, open, showing the somewhat fleshy red arils which have grown up from the base of the seeds and now enclose them. The fruits remain on the tree during the winter, so that these shrubs are often culti vated in ornamental shrubbery. E. europceus is called spindle-tree, because its hard, close grained, white wood was once esteemed as a material for spindles, musical instruments and netting needles and is still used for skewers and in turning. It is a glabrous shrub, with broad and shining leaves and deeply four lobed, smooth pods which have been employed as a dye-stuff. One of our most handsome shrubs in autumn is the burning bush, or wa hoo, E. atropurpueus, with crimson and scar let lobed capsuels. E. americanus is the straw berry-tree, a low bush, with oval leaves and a crimson capsule, scarcely lobed, but covered with pointed warts and disclosing scarlet arils. The E. obovatus is similar in fruit, but has a trailing habit and obovate leaves The foliage of a Japanese species (E. alata) turns to a brilliant rose pink in autumn.