ABSTRACT
Diseases of the nervous system that we regard now as those of viral origin have been known and described already in antiquity and in the middle ages. Louis Pasteur adopted the rabbit for studies of his group, and as a result of their efforts, they proved conclusively the long suspected neurotropic character of the causative agent of rabies. The relation of rabies and of other infectious diseases to the nervous system was further documented by early histopathological studies around the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries. The study of the distribution pattern of the lesions led Constantin Levaditi to the first formulation of the specific affinity of viruses to well-defined neural structures. Around the middle of the last century, novel histological techniques emerged that complemented conventional methods and opened new horizons in the study of the phenomenon of neurotropism.
