The Discovery of Transmitters Other than Noradrenaline and Acetylcholine at Synapses in the Peripheral Nervous System

Research on the synaptic connections of the autonomic nervous system was lead for over 40 years by J.N.Langley (18521925) of Cambridge (Fig. 7.1A). His genius was both as an experimentalist (with an unbroken record of publications in the Journal of Physiology during each year from 1878 to 1925) as well as in a critical ability that allowed for generalizations so firmly embedded in fact that most of them have withstood the tests of time. They range from the teasing out of the enormous complexity of peripheral nerve connections to the idea of the chemical synapse and the concept of secretion of transmitter from nerve terminals onto receptors.