Histological evidence against the view that the cat's optic nerve contains centrifugal fibres

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Abstract
Degeneration that can be shown by the Nauta-Gygax technique in the orgital part of the cat''s optic nerve does not begin until 10 days after intracranial transection of the nerve, though after enucleation of the eye it is conspicuous in 4 days. Silver-staining technique applied to an optic nerve at any interval after an operation did not reveal whether at the operation the nerve had been cut peripherally only or both peripherally and centrally. It was concluded that either the cat''s optic nerve contains no centrifugal fiber detectable by silver staining and light microscopy, or, if there are such fibers, they are much less susceptible to prograde (Wallerian) degeneration and much more susceptible to retrograde degeneration than most of the centripetal fibers. The former is the simpler and the more likely conclusion.