THE NEUROFIBRILS IN SYSTEMIC DISEASE AND IN SUPRAVITAL EXPERIMENTS

Abstract

Studies of cerebral changes in dysentery and other severe gastrointestinal infections, carried out in collaboration with T. T. Wu, made it necessary, before judging the results, to study some features in specimens stained by the Bielschowsky method which hitherto have been considered pathologic, such as thickening, formation of more or less winding strands and especially argentophilia of intracellular neurofibrils in supravital experiments. Studies of the behavior of the brain tissue by supravital incubation in different fluids are not new. Zanke¹ used this method to determine the liability of the brain tissue to swell in fluids of different tonicity; he carried on his studies by comparative weights. He found an increase in swelling of human brain tissue of from 15 to 20 per cent in water and of from 7 to 10 per cent in 0.6 per cent saline solution. Apelt² studied whether this swelling would be different under