REVIEW OF THE GOLGI METHOD. 



By Oliver S. Strong. 



The advent of the Golgi method in nerve histology has so 

 greatly enlarged our knowledge and altered our conceptions of 

 the structure of the nervous system in many respects and the 

 method, or methods, itself has such well defined peculiarities that 

 it has been thought that a general review of it from the techni- 

 cal side would be of interest and perhaps of use, especially in 

 view of the very considerable number of investigators now 

 employing it. 



The review does not aim at any originality of treatment 

 but is simply a compilation from available literature of its vari- 

 ous modifications and applications. It may be stated that it 

 does not include Golgi's arsenic-gold chloride method nor even 

 the application of the bichromate-silver methods to the structure 

 of meduUated nerve fibres. 



It has seemed most appropriate to begin the review with a 

 translation of the technique of Golgi's methods as given by Golgi 

 himself, principally in his work "Studi sulla fina anatomia degli 

 organi centrali del sistema nervoso, " pp. 181-208. The trans- 

 lation is made, however, from the German edition of Golgi's 

 works ( •' Untersuchungen iiber den feineren Bau des centralen 

 und peripherischen Nervensystems," pp. 169-182, translated by 

 R. Teuscher). Golgi's own account of the technique is still 

 the most complete nor does it seem to be by any means univer- 

 sally understood how completely Golgi worked it out and how 

 largely we owe not only the discovery but also the development 

 of the method to him. It is for these reasons as well as for the 

 many valuable hints contained therein that the translation of this 

 rather extensive account of Golgi's is here given. 



"The particular methods to which I owe my most note- 

 worthy success are the following: (i) The method of black- 

 staining by successively treating the pieces (of brain tissue) 



