In the present study of nutrition control of Wistar white rats, the ultrastructure of cerebellar Purkinje cells was studied after chronic ethanol exposure and a subsequent period of prolonged abstinence: a qualitative investigation of the perikarya of Purkinje cells was performed in age-matched controls (group A) and rats alcohol-fed for 5 months and withdrawn from this diet for 3 months (group B). The results showed massive accumulation of small dense bodies as well as obvious deposition of lipofuscin in the Purkinje cells of group B. Furthermore, ring-shaped Golgi apparatus units, lamellar bodies and degenerative foci dispersed throughout the cytoplasm of the alcohol-treated animals referred to degeneration processes and neuronal cell death, the morphological characteristics and the aetiology of which are discussed.