LITERARY NOTICES. 



Effects of Alcohol on the Cortical Nerye Cell.^ 



The tendency apparent of late to concentrate the attention upon 

 Hmited problems of neuro-physiology and attempt their solution by the 

 various improved methods now at our command is bearing fruit in 

 investigations promising to give us definite and reliable data for pathol- 

 ogy and psychology. Naturally none of these problems has greater 

 practical and theoretical importance than that respecting the causes and 

 character of cortical degeneration. 



Dr. Berkley has sought to contribute to the solution of this prob- 

 lem by minute studies of the changes in the cortical cell produced by 

 the long-continued administration of alcohol to rabbits. 5 to 8 cc. of ab- 

 solute alcohol were fed to the animals and the dose continued until 

 their death perhaps a year after the beginning of the experiment. The 

 specimens were hardened in alcohol or Miiller's fluid. Nissl's method 

 and hasmatoxylin-eosin staining for cellular structures and blood-vessels 

 followed alcohol hardening and an original process, the MuUer's fluid. 

 (The reviewer can but express surprise that methods known to induce 

 such shrinking and alteration in the cell bodies should have been 

 employed for hardening). The process referred to is as follows : 



" The cerebra are treated with Miiller's fluid until the tissue is of 

 sufficient consistency to admit of fairly thin sections. The portions of 

 the brain selected are then cut into pieces not more than three milli- 

 meters in thickness, and the slices are immersed in a mixture of 3 per 

 cent, solution of bichromate of potassium, and i per cent, solution of 

 osmic acid, in the proportion of 100 parts of the former to 20 parts of 

 the latter. In this mixture the slices lie from three to five days, are 

 then removed from the fluid, and slightly dried on filter paper to re- 

 move any superfluous bichromate, are washed for a few minutes in a 

 weak solution of silver nitrate, and then go into the second or staining 

 mixture, which is made by adding two drops of a ten per cent, solu- 



^Berkley, H. J. Studies on the Lesions produced by the Action of Cer-. 

 tain Poisons on the Cortical Nerve Cell. — i. Alcohol. Brain, IV, 1895. 



