QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF THE PURKINJE CELLS 231 



In order to determine the, nature and extent of the variations 

 in the Purkinje cells, and especially to determine the differences 

 between normal and subnormal cerebella, a careful study of 

 the numerical distribution of these cells has been made, the 

 results of which it is the purpose of this paper to present. 



MATERIAL 



For the best results in studying the present problem it would 

 be desirable to have cerebella in perfectly normal condition to 

 be used as the standards with which the subnormal ones are 

 compared. These normal cerebella should be from individuals 

 in the prune of life, who were known to have had good physique 

 and good motor control and who had died either from accident 

 or from some acute disease which did not cause a disintegration 

 of nervous elements. Pathological material is to be had in 

 abundance, but to secure any number of approximately normal 

 cases is next to impossible. In the present study, consequently, 

 it has been necessary to use as our norms cerebella from the 

 museum collection of The Wistar Institute. No claim is made 

 that this material is ideal; it is hoped, however, that sufficient 

 care and caution have been used, both in the procedure followed 

 and in the interpretation of results, to prevent serious errors 

 arising from the material employed. 



To obtain norms, the cerebella of three adult whites and of 

 five adult negroes, all males (thirty to forty-two years of age), 

 were sectioned and a preliminary study was made to determine 

 whether or not they had suffered any loss of Purkinje cells. In 

 nearly every case there was at least some maceration and some 

 loss of these cells, but four of the number, three negroes and one 

 white, showed very slight losses, and these were accordingly 

 used as the material for determining the norm. These are the 

 cases listed in table 1. The other four cases were rejected 

 because microscopical examination clearly showed that cells had 

 disintegrated and dropped out, and it would consequently have 

 been impossible to determine from them the number of cells 

 normally present. 



THE JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY, VOL. 30, NO. 2 



