Abstract
It is generally held that nerve cells which have been destroyed are not restored. While this may well be true for the type of nerve cells which are usually considered in this connection, it has not been demonstrated to apply to the neurons of the olfactory nerve, the cell bodies of which retain the primitive location in the surface epithelium found in certain lower forms of animal life (neuroepithelium). The cell bodies of the olfactory nerve (olfactory cells) are located for the most part in the mid-zone of the fairly thick pseudostratified columnar epithelium of the olfactory mucosa. 1 Each cell gives off two processes: (1) a superficial stout one, or dendrite, which extends slightly beyond the surface of the mucosa and (2) a deep one, or axone, which passes centralward to the olfactory bulbs under the frontal lobe of the brain. These processes can be demonstrated only by special staining procedures, such as the Bodian method for showing neurofibrils, 2 and are less easily stained than the fibrils of other nerves.
In previous communications 3 we have reported that it is possible to induce a high degree of resistance in monkeys against intranasal inoculation with the virus of poliomyelitis by a previous irrigation of the nasal passages with a 1% solution of zinc sulfate. The resistance so induced generally lasts at least one month, but is almost without exception followed by a return of susceptibility within the next 3 or 4 months. It is initiated by an extensive coagulation necrosis of the olfactory mucosa, followed usually within a day or two by its separation, more or less en masse, from the underlying lamina propria and adjacent glands of Bowman. 1
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