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Slide 88
This specimen is a "smear" of gray matter taken from ox spinal cord (i.e., a small piece of gray matter from the core of the spinal cord has been squashed into a thin smear on the slide.)
Nerve cell bodies (mostly large motor neurons) are distinctly basophilic. Dendrites can be seen extending out from cell bodies, only to be lost in the unresolvable smear of neuropil.
An axon can only be distinguished when it emerges from an axon hillock that happens to lie on the edge of the squashed nerve cell body. In such a case, the axon hillock is noticable as a small region of pale cytoplasm, devoid of basophilic Nissl bodies. (Reliably recognizable axon hillock examples have been noticed only on the slides in Boxes 1 and 8.)
Extremely numerous glial cell nuclei, far smaller than the neuron cell bodies, appear scattered across the specimen.
Occasional capillaries can also be seen extending across the specimen.
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SIUC / College of Science / Zoology / David King / ZOOL 409