The anatomy of the central nervous organs in health and in disease / by Heinrich Obersteiner ; translated, with annotations and additions, from the third German edition, with all the alterations and corrections prepared by the author for the forthcoming fourth German edition by Alex Hill.
- Heinrich Obersteiner
- Date:
- 1900
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The anatomy of the central nervous organs in health and in disease / by Heinrich Obersteiner ; translated, with annotations and additions, from the third German edition, with all the alterations and corrections prepared by the author for the forthcoming fourth German edition by Alex Hill. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![or they may be merely heated until the fluid gives off steam. They arc then well washed and, in some cases, stained in carmine or eosin. further treatment as usual. This method is certain, simple, very rapid, and particularly useful in the examination of nerve-roots and peripheral nerves, parts which are often difficult to prepare satisfactorily with hsematoxylin staining. 2. Gold. The object of gold-staining is almost invariably to render the axis-cylinders conspicuous. Beautiful as gold preparations occasionally are, all methods of this sort must be regarded as more or less uncertain, at least in the case of the central nervous system. They are consequently little used. 3. The Sublimate Colouring of Golgi.—Little pieces of the central nervous system are, after thorough hardening in bichromate of potassium, placed in a 025 per cent, watery solution of corrosive sublimate. The fluid is renewed as often as it becomes coloured yellow, and the concentra- tion of the solution may be raised to 0-5 or even 1 per cent. Small pieces are saturated in eight to ten days, but the longer they are left the more thoroughly are they permeated—larger pieces require a long time; and they may remain in the solution without harm for years. The pieces are now cut, and despite their very favourable consistence the sections need not be made very thin; they must be well washed, however, else after some weeks numerous acicular crystals of corrosive sublimate will be seen. Subsequent treatment as usual. With low and moderate magnification certain nerve and connective- tissue cells as well as connective-tissue fibres appear intensely black. This colour is due to a hue crystalline precipitation in the tissue spaces [or lymph spaces] around the tissue-elements. Pal has invented an improved sublimate method. It consists in treating the sections with sodic sulphide (Na2S), which gives more precise figures, black even with a high power. 10 grins, of caustic soda are dissolved in 1000 gnus, of water; half of this is saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen, mixed with the other half and kept in a well stoppered bottle. The sections are carefully washed and lifted from the sublimate solution into this fluid, and remain there until the spots, at first white, become black. Subsequent treatment as usual. Fledmg has invented a combination of the sublimate colouring of Golgi and medullary-sheath staining, which is said to give particularly beautiful figures. The tissue is impregnated with sublimate as in the former method, and the sections, after being stained in log-wood in the way already described (p. 22) and decolourised by Pal’s method, are transferred to a mixture of 5 drops of double chloride of gold and potassium, with 20 cubic centimeters absolute alcohol. In this they remain until the precipitates formed by the sublimate have turned black, and the red bundles of nerves have assumed a bluish colour. They are then washed quickly in a mixture of l drop of 5 per cent, solution of potassium cyanide to 10 grms. distilled water. Dehydrate and clear.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28716826_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
