ACUTE SWELLING OF THE OLIGODENDROGLIA AND GRAPELIKE AREAS OF DISINTEGRATION

Abstract

Since the first article of Buscaino¹concerning the appearance of a new type of pathologic lesion which the author called "grapelike areas of disintegration," because they resembled a bunch of grapes (fig. 1), the attention of numerous workers has been directed toward the investigation of the real nature and significance of these areas. The presence of these areas in pathologic brains was soon confirmed by many authors, among whom I will mention only Salustri,²d'Antona,³Bolsi,⁴Insabato, de Lisi, Ansalone,⁵Barbieri⁶and myself.⁷They consist of small foci, grouped together like a bunch of grapes, and they contain birefracting metachromatic coagulum which Buscaino calls substance "X." The grapelike area was first thought by Buscaino to be an expression of a true process of disintegration due to primary lesions of the nerve fibers and eventually also of nerve and neuroglia cells. In his first