1898 - THE GOLGI-APPARATUS EMERGES FROM NERVE-CELLS

A century ago, Camillo Golgi discovered in neurons an intracellular ne twork of anastomosing threads, impregnated by the chromoargentic react ion he had devised to stain the nervous tissue, This structure, design ated by Golgi as 'internal reticular apparatus', was soon detected in a wide variety of eukaryotic cells. However, skepticism arose on the e xistence of the Golgi apparatus in the first decades of this century, when it was fiercely debated whether this structure represented a genu ine new cell constituent or an artifact due to the deposit of metallic impregnation on diverse cytoplasmic structures,The reality of the Gol gi apparatus became established unequivocally only with the applicatio n of electron microscopy; with the visualization of its fine structure , the apparatus finally achieved the status of cytoplasmic organelle,a nd thus, linked with Golgi's name, entered the modern era of investiga tion on its components, chemistry and function.