A NEW DEMONSTRATION OF HORTEGA CELLS

Abstract

Since del Rio Hortega published his silver carbonate method for the demonstration of the neuroglia cell which now carries his name, there have been complaints from research workers and technicians that the method "simply does not always work." I have been interested in silver methods for histologic purposes since the same attitude has arisen as regards their application to Spirochaeta pallida. Experimentation with spirochetes resulted in the presentation of my "colloidal" method for demonstrating them in single microscopic sections.¹ Following this work, I applied certain modifications of the procedure to the Hortega cells and, as is common experience with silver methods, there was obtained, through certain mysterious incidences, the best demonstration of rod cells in dementia paralytica that I had seen. The inconstant results, however, were as discouraging as with Hortega's original method, and I accordingly dropped the investigation in spite of the occasional exceptionally excellent pictures resulting with