ABSTRACT
The author closed off his career in histochemistry with a paper at the senior scientific session at the University of Chicago School of Medicine then titled “The histochemistry of the nervous system: a new approach to experimental neurology and neuropathology.” After reviewing some of the fundamentals of histochemistry, he pointed out that the parenchyma of the nervous system was found to have its own distinctive enzymatic architecture and peculiar histochemical esterase staining properties, differing in various species and in particular localizations in the nervous system. For example, five types of neurons, which were all morphologically similar, could be demonstrated as different by the use of histochemical techniques. These techniques offer new methods in neuropathological investigation in that changes on the histochemical level in situ as well as the classical morphological changes can now be followed in naturally occurring disease and under experimental conditions.
