was later confirmed to be acetylcholine and was found to be the principal neurotransmitter in the parasympathetic nervous system. In an interesting aside, Loewi apparently had the idea for his experiment in a dream. He wrote it down in the middle of the night but the next morning could not decipher his writing. He eventually had the same dream on another night, and decided to run to the laboratory to perform the experiment in the middle of the night. About this incident, Loewi writes: On mature consideration, in the cold light of the morning, I would not have done it. After all, it was an unlikely enough assumption that the vagus should secrete an inhibitory substance; it was still more unlikely that a chemical substance that was supposed to be effective at very close range between nerve terminal and muscle be secreted in such large amounts that it would spill over and, after being diluted by the perfusion fluid, still be able to inhibit another heart. (Loewi 1921) Loewi was fortunate in his choice of experimental preparation. In the species of frog used (Rana esculenta), the vagus contains both inhibitory and stimulatory fibers. In the winter, inhibitory fibers predominate, so Loewi was also fortunate to have performed his experiments in February or March. Additionally, acetylcholinesterase activity (the enzyme that degrades acetylcholine) is low, particularly in an unheated laboratory, allowing the neurotransmitter to remain long enough to be collected and applied to a second heart. Thanks to this confluence of events, Loewi was able to describe the existence of vagusstoff and prove the existence of chemical synaptic transmission. See also Acetylcholine Otto Loewi Vagus nerve Synapse Sources J.G. Nicholls, A.R. Martin, B.G. Wallace and P.A. Fuchs. "From Neuron to Brain". 4th ed. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. Neurochemistry History of neuroscience