The conception of the reticular organization of the nervous tissue of Alexander Dogiel

2017 marks the 95th year of the death of Alexander Stanislavovich Dogel, a professor and a famous neurohistologist who added lustre to neurohistology by his unique supravital studies of the nervous system by means of methylene blue. Dogel's basis works are equal in their significance to those of Ramon-y-Kajal, Retzius and other universally acknowledged neurologists. The fundamental difference between the works of Dogel and the works of the great Ramon-y-Kajal is that he was the first to indisputably prove the syncytial and cytoplasmic connection between the soma and the dendrites in the neuron system. His works decisively confirmed the data obtained by Wagner, Sosa-Sosa, Kulchitsky and many others on the connection between syncytial commissural interneurons. He was the first to get apparent images of cobweb-like neural nets - a real reticulum. We have also managed to find original pictures of preparates used by the prominent adherents of the neuron theory - A. Van Gehuchten, Ramon-y-Kajal, Retzius - that confirm the possibility of syncytial connectivity in the neural system and arguments of the reticular theory. The intravital own studies of the tissue allowed the authors of the article to prove the possibility of syncytial fusion of nerve dendrites, emergence of binucleate cells and formation of the nerve reticulum elements.