Recognized as the father of neuroscience, Santiago Ramon y Cajal was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1906, along with Camillo Golgi, for his work on the structure of the nervous system and the role of the neuron.
The son of Justo Ramon and Antonia Cajal, Santiago Ramon y Cajal (also known as Cajal) was born on 1 May 1852 in the village of Petilla de Aragón, Spain, where his father was a rural doctor. Justo Ramon earned a doctorate in medicine in 1858 and eventually became a professor of dissection and anatomy at the Universidad de Zaragoza (University of Saragossa), which later would be a major influence on Cajal’s career.
At a young age, Cajal was interested in being an artist yet also showed signs of potential as an inventor which, when not channeled correctly, could lead to trouble, as when he destroyed a neighbor’s gate with a homemade cannon at the age of 11. Seeking to instill discipline and stability in his son, Justo Ramon apprenticed Cajal to a shoemaker and a barber. By the time Cajal was 16, however, he was assisting his father in anatomical studies by sketching bones from human remains found in a cemetery. The merging of arts and medicine had a profound impact on Cajal’s future.
Cajal attended medical school at the Universidad de Zaragoza and graduated as a licentiate in medicine in 1873, at the age of 21. After entering the Spanish army as a medical officer, he served in an expedition to Cuba in 1874-1875, in the midst of Cuba’s 10-year struggle to achieve independence from Spain. The tropical environment did not treat Cajal kindly, as he contacted both malaria and tuberculosis.
After recovering from these illnesses in Spain, Cajal quickly succeeded in the field of medicine. In 1875, he became an assistant at the school of anatomy in the Universidad de Zaragoza. In 1877, after studying in Madrid, he received a doctorate in medicine. During the late 1870s and early 1880s, he divided his time between studying in Madrid and working in Zaragoza. In 1879, he became the director of the anatomical museum at the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad de Zaragoza. Also that year he married Silveria Fañanas Garcia, which whom he eventually had seven children.
In the early 1880s, while studying in Madrid for an exam that would allow him to become a professor, Cajal saw a demonstration of the microscopic preparation of cells. Upon his return to Zaragoza, Cajal set up his own laboratory in the attic of his home, where he taught himself histology, which is the study of the microscopic structure of cells and tissues or microscopic anatomy. This was part of his more general study of inflammation, muscle anatomy, and microbiology. Based on his studies, he began writing about histology.
In 1883, Cajal became a professor of anatomy and histology at the Universidad de Valencia. His early work there focused on the pathology of inflammation, the structure of epithelial cells and tissues, and the microbiology of cholera.
In 1887, Cajal became a professor of histology and pathological anatomy at the Universidad de Barcelona, where he worked until 1892. Also in 1887, Cajal learned of a technique to stain nerve cells, which was first developed by the Italian Camillo Golgi in 1873. Golgi’s “reazione nera” (black reaction) used specific chemicals to make neurons visible against a transparent yellow background. Cajal experimented with this method in his own laboratory, finding that different tissues required different procedures and that tissues from younger animals allowed better staining results than tissues from older animals.
Using his early skills as an artist, Cajal created detailed drawings of the cells he studied under his microscope. His systematic documentation of the microscopic structure of the central nervous system supported his theories that challenged the commonly accepted ideas about how cells in the brain work. At this time in Spain, there was little support for scientific research, so Cajal edited and financed his own medical journal, Revista Trimestral de Histología Normal y Patológica (Quarterly Review of Normal and Pathological Histology), where he published the results of his work.
By 1891, Cajal devised the theory that nerve cells are individual cells that are not anatomically connected to other nerve cells. The term “neuron” was proposed by another scientist (Heinrich von Waldeyer) to refer to these individual nerve cells. Cajal also stated that the neuron is the structural and functional unit of the nervous system and that the neuron has three parts: dendrites, soma, and axon. His illustrations of nerve cells showed what he called “arborizations” in that nerve cells have branches like trees that grow and become more elaborate over time.
In 1892, Cajal moved to Madrid where he was appointed professor of histology and pathological anatomy. At this time, Spain was felt to be in decline compared to the rest of Europe, which was more heavily influenced by the industrial revolution and what has been referred to as “the cult of positive science.” As a member of the “generación de ’98”, Cajal worked toward an appreciation for science and its role in society.
In the early 1890s, Cajal began to receive recognition in the form of honorary degrees and prizes and was elected as a member to many scientific societies and academies. His reputation extended beyond Spain. In 1894, he was invited to give the prestigious Croonian Lecture at the British Royal Society of London. In subsequent years, he received honorary degrees from universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Untied States.
In 1900, Cajal was appointed as the director of the Instituto Nacional de Higiene (National Institute of Hygiene) and of the Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas (Biological Research laboratory) in 1901. During this time, he continued to improve upon Golgi’s staining techniques.
In 1906, along with Golgi, Cajal was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for their work on the structure of the nervous system, even though they supported differing theories about that structure. The theory supported by Cajal ultimately proved to be more accurate and more widely accepted, so that it is Cajal who is more often recognized as the father of neuroscience.
In 1920, the king of Spain commissioned a building for the Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas, of which Cajal was the director. The Laboratorio at the same time was renamed the Instituto Cajal, where Cajal continued to work until his death in 1934.
Cajal wrote a memoir, Recuerdos de mi Vida (Recollections of my Life); the first volume Mi Infancia y Juventud (My Childhood and Youth) was published in Madrid in 1901, and the second volume Historia de mi Labor Cientifica (Story of my Scientific Work) in 1917. The two were combined into one publication in 1923. The 1923 version is available online in Spanish at Instituto Cervantes (cvc.cervantes.es).
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