THE FUNCTION OF BRÜCKE'S MUSCLE.

In 1864 Brücke published his views in regard to what he calls the "ciliary muscle." As is well known, this muscle consists of two parts, one circular, and one longitudinal. The circular portion escaped his observation, but he correctly apprehended the longitudinal part, and to it his name has been applied. Brücke first demonstrated that the ciliary muscle was unstriated. It had hitherto been designated the "ligamentum scleroticum," "plexus ciliaris," or "ganglion ciliare," according to the different views of its structure. Brücke failed to correctly understand the function of the longitudinal muscle, and this error, to a degree, still prevails. In his "Anatomic Description of the Human Eyeball" he states: "the muscle discovered by me extends from the corneo-scleral junction to the roots of the ciliary process." Unfortunately he did not follow the muscle farther into the choroid, and consequently there escaped him the important fact that it extends nearly