Elucidating the Structure and Workings of the Nervous System
Overview
The detailed study of the nervous system did not begin in earnest until the middle of the nineteenth century. As with other areas of science, it was not until innovative technology was able to keep up with the new ideas that the structure and workings of the nervous system began to be discovered. Prior to the important discoveries of Camillo Golgi (1843-1926) in 1873 and Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) in 1889, very little was known about the nervous system. This was especially true with regard to the microscopic structure of how each nerve cell was connected to the next one. This lack of understanding was due, in part, to the lack of appropriate staining techniques to help visualize a nerve cell (neuron) in the microscope.
In 1873 Camillo Golgi invented a technique for staining neurons that made it possible to observe and distinguish the three principle parts of the cell—the cell body, dendrites, and axon—with a microscope. This technique was termed the "black reaction" (reazione nera), based on a process that first hardened the nervous tissue and later impregnated it with a metallic stain. The revolutionary process that Golgi developed, which for the first time allowed a clear visualization of an entire neuron, is still used with minor modifications today.
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