Wallerian degeneration is named after Augustus Volney Waller. Waller experimented on frogs in 1850, by severing their glossopharyngeal and hypoglossal nerves. He then observed the distal nerves from the site of injury, which were separated from their cell bodies in the brain stem.[1] Waller described the disintegration of myelin, which he referred to as "medulla", into separate particles of various sizes.