“The human brain is a world consisting of a number of explored continents and great stretches of unknown territory” - Santiago Ramón y Cajal.
Born on May 1, 1852, at Petilla de Aragón, Spain. As a boy he was apprenticed first to a barber and then to a cobbler. He himself wished to be an artist - his gift is evident in his published works. His father, however, who was Professor of Applied Anatomy in the University of Saragossa, persuaded him to study medicine, which he did. Later, he made drawings for an atlas of anatomy which his father was preparing, but was never published.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal is the father of modern neuroscience. After studying at the University of Zaragoza, he developed two nerve-specific stains, allowing him to differentiate neurons from other cells. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906 for establishing the neuron as the basic unit of the nervous structure. Many of his illustrations are still used today.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the nervous system, particularly through the neuron doctrine.
His first finding of a nerve cell, found with a rickety Verick microscope, was published in The Catholic Daily in Zaragoza. While convalescing from tuberculosis in 1884 he also became a skilled photographer. That year he was appointed to the chair of comparative anatomy at Valencia. In 1887 Ramón y Cajal was appointed to the chair of normal and pathological histology at Barcelona and, in 1892, to the chair of histology and pathological anatomy at Madrid, a position he held until his retirement in 1922. In 1900 he had been appointed director of the Investigaciones biológicas and the Instituto nacional de Higiene.
In 1920 King Alfonso XIII of Spain commissioned the construction of the Cajal Institute in Madrid, where Ramón y Cajal worked until his death. Among his many books concerning nervous structure is Estudios sobre la degeneración y regeneración del sistema nervioso, 2 vol. (1913–14; The Degeneration and Regeneration of the Nervous System).
Very interesting information about the man who started everything and the reason that we know so much about the nervous system today. He had so many talents but I'll have to say that the establishment of the neuron was his best talent and contribution to the world. Thanks to him there are so many advances in medicine and we can understand the human body a lot better. Great blog!
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