In the early 1960s, Dr. Alexander G. Karczmar, Professor of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Stritch School of Medicine of the Medical Center at Loyola University of Chicago, was confronted with a certain technical problem concerning his studies of synaptic transmission by means of microelectrode methods. He thought that the problem might be resolved if he could interest a microelectrode expert such as Dr. Kyozo Koketsu in his studies. Dr. Koketsu was a past member of the Faculty of the Kurume University School of Medicine who as a Research Fellow at the Australian National University had helped Sir John Eccles, subse quently a Nobel Prize winner, in developing microelectrode procedures. After further considering the matter, Dr. Karczmar was pleasantly sur prised to discover that by coincidence Dr. Koketsu was his neighbor, serving at that time as a Research Professor at the Neuropsychiatry Institute of the University of Illinois, College of Medicine of Chicago. This was the beginning of a long relationship, as Dr. Koketsu joined Dr. Karczmar at Loyola as Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Director of the Neurophysiology Laboratory at the Stritch School of Medicine. It was not long before Dr. Syogoro Nishi-Dr. Koketsu's former colleague on the Faculty of Medicine at Kurume University, and at that time a Research Fellow in Neurophysiology at the Rockefeller Institute in New York joined Drs. Koketsu and Karczmar at Loyola. Although in due time Drs.

A conspicuous portion of the peripheral nervous system is part of the 'vegetative nervous system'; it includes all the neurons which innerv ate the viscera, salivary and lacrimal glands, the heart and blood vessels, all other smooth muscles of the body, notably the intrinsic muscles of the eye and the muscles of the hair. Only part of the system belongs to the peripheral nervous system: it has also its own nuclei and pathways in the central nervous system. The distinction between visceral and somatic functions is a very old one in our culture. With the development of neurology the notion of a widespread nervous control of body functions emerged. Winslow (1732) used the term nervi sympathici majores for those nerves, which he thought to carry about 'sympathies' and then co ordinate various viscera's functions. His was an anatomical break through, which obscured Willis' 'intercostal nerve' and Vesalius 'cranial nerve'. The notion was developed among others by John stone (1764) who arrived, with the aid of some very accurate anatomical observations, at the problem of the nervous influence on motion and sensitivity of viscera. By the end of the eighteenth century, it was clear, with Bichat (1800), that what he called 'sympa thetic nervous system' (and his pupil Reil, a few years later, 'vegeta tive nervous system ') controlled visceral functions (fa vie organique), whereas somatic functions (fa vie animafe) were under direct control from the brain and spinal cord.

D.A. KHARKEVICH The history of the study of ganglionic substances begins with the paper of LANGLEY and DICKINSON (1889), who established the ability of nicotine to block the neurones in the superior cervical ganglion. This was a considerable discovery as the authors ascertained that impulses were transmitted from pre- to postganglionic neurones in the autonomic ganglia. Simultaneously they indicated the possibility of pharmaco logical influence upon interneuronal transmission in autonomic ganglia. The idea of ganglionic receptors specifically sensitive to nicotine followed logically. Later, LANGLEY (1905, 1906) considered the problem of receptors with respect to neuro-effector synapses. It is remarkable that he was one of the first to put forward the theory of chemical mediation of excitation (" ... the nervous impulse should not pass from nerve to muscle by an electric discharge, but by the secretion of a special substance at the end of the nerve": LANGLEY, 1906, p. 183). In addition, LANGLEY JOHN N. LANGLEY (1852-1926) D.A. KHARKEVICH 2 and his collaborators managed to define the topography of autonomic ganglia more precisely by means of nicotine. It should be mentioned that it was he who introduced the terms "autonomic nervous system" and "parasympathetic nervous system".