Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Encyclopedia
Santiago Ramón y Cajal ForMemRS
(1 May 1852 – 17 October 1934) was a Spanish
pathologist
, histologist
, neuroscientist
, and Nobel laureate. His pioneering investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain were original: he is considered by many to be the father of modern neuroscience
. He was skilled at drawing, and hundreds of his illustrations of brain cells are still used for educational purposes today.
in Navarre
, Spain
. As a child he was transferred between many different schools because of his poor behavior and anti-authoritarian
attitude. An extreme example of his precociousness and rebelliousness is his imprisonment at the age of eleven for destroying the town gate with a homemade cannon. He was an avid painter, artist, and gymnast. He worked for a time as a shoemaker and barber, and was well known for his pugnacious attitude.
Ramón y Cajal attended the medical school of the University of Zaragoza
, from which he graduated in 1873. After a competitive examination, he served as a medical officer
in the Spanish Army
. He took part in an expedition to Cuba in 1874-75, where he contracted malaria
and tuberculosis
. After returning to Spain he married Silveria Fañanás García in 1879, with whom he had four daughters and three sons. In 1877, he received his Doctor Of Medicine Degree in Madrid. Ramon y Cajal was appointed as a professor of the Universidad de Valencia in 1881. He later held professorships in both Barcelona
and Madrid. He was a Director of the Zaragoza Museum (1879), director of the National Institute of Hygiene (1899), and founder of the (1922), later renamed to the , or Cajal Institute
. He died in Madrid in 1934, at the age of 82.
Ramón y Cajal's early work was accomplished at the Universities of Zaragoza and Valencia, where he focused on the pathology of inflammation
, the microbiology of cholera
, and the structure of epithelial cells and tissues. It was not until he moved to the University of Barcelona in 1887 that he learned Golgi
's silver nitrate
preparation and turned his attention to the central nervous system
. During this period he made extensive studies of neural material covering many species and most major regions of the brain.
Ramón y Cajal made several major contributions to neuroanatomy. He discovered the axonal growth cone, and provided the definitive evidence for what would later be known as "neuron theory", experimentally demonstrating that the relationship between nerve cells was not one of continuity, but rather of contiguity. "Neuron theory" stands as the foundation of modern neuroscience.
He provided detailed descriptions of cell types associated with neural structures, and produced excellent depictions of structures and their connectivity.
He was an advocate of the existence of spines, although he did not recognize them as the site of contact from presynaptic cells. He was a proponent of polarization of nerve cell function and his student Lorente de No would continue this study of input/output systems into cable theory
and some of the earliest circuit analysis of neural structures.
In the debate of the neural network theories (neuron theory, reticular theory) Ramón y Cajal was a fierce defender of the neuron theory.
He discovered a new type of cell, to be named after him: the interstitial cell of Cajal
(ICC). This is not neural or glial, but a cell that is something in between, vitally mediating neurotransmission from nerves to bowel smooth muscle cells.
In his 1894 Croonian Lecture
, he suggested in an extended metaphor that cortical pyramidal cells may become more elaborate with time, as a tree grows and extends its branches. He also devoted a considerable amount of his time to studying hypnosis (which he used to help his wife with birth labor) and parapsychological phenomena, but a book he had written on these areas got lost during the Spanish Civil War.
of the Universities of Cambridge
and Würzburg
and honorary Doctor of Philosophy
of the Clark University
.
He published over 100 scientific works and articles in French
, Spanish
, and German
. Among his most notable were Rules and advices on scientific investigation, Histology, Degeneration and regeneration of the nervous system, Manual of normal histology and micrographic technique, Elements of histology, Manual of general Anatomic Pathology
, New ideas on the fine anatomy of the nerve centres, Textbook on the nervous system of man and the vertebrate
s, and The retina
of vertebrates.
In 1905, he published five science-fictional "Vacation Stories" under the pen name "Dr. Bacteria."
In 1906 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
together with an Italian man of science, Golgi 'in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system'. This was seen as quite controversial owing to the fact Golgi, a stout reticularist, disagreed with Cajal in his view of the neurone doctrine.
The asteroid
117413 Ramonycajal
is named in his honour.david f.
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
(1 May 1852 – 17 October 1934) was a Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
pathologist
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
, histologist
Histology
Histology is the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants and animals. It is performed by examining cells and tissues commonly by sectioning and staining; followed by examination under a light microscope or electron microscope...
, neuroscientist
Neuroscientist
A neuroscientist is an individual who studies the scientific field of neuroscience or any of its related sub-fields...
, and Nobel laureate. His pioneering investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain were original: he is considered by many to be the father of modern neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
. He was skilled at drawing, and hundreds of his illustrations of brain cells are still used for educational purposes today.
Biography
The son of physician and anatomy lecturer Justo Ramón and Antonia Cajal, Ramón y Cajal was born of Aragonese parents in Petilla de AragónPetilla de Aragón
Petilla de Aragón is a town and municipality of the autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. The municipality itself is formed by two enclaves that are entirely surrounded by the neighboring autonomous community of Aragon.The town is the birthplace of the famous scientist Santiago Ramón y...
in Navarre
Navarre
Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. As a child he was transferred between many different schools because of his poor behavior and anti-authoritarian
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a form of social organization characterized by submission to authority. It is usually opposed to individualism and democracy...
attitude. An extreme example of his precociousness and rebelliousness is his imprisonment at the age of eleven for destroying the town gate with a homemade cannon. He was an avid painter, artist, and gymnast. He worked for a time as a shoemaker and barber, and was well known for his pugnacious attitude.
Ramón y Cajal attended the medical school of the University of Zaragoza
University of Zaragoza
The University of Zaragoza or sometimes Saragossa University is a university located in Zaragoza, in the Aragon region of Spain...
, from which he graduated in 1873. After a competitive examination, he served as a medical officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
in the Spanish Army
Spanish Army
The Spanish Army is the terrestrial army of the Spanish Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is one of the oldest active armies - dating back to the 15th century.-Introduction:...
. He took part in an expedition to Cuba in 1874-75, where he contracted malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. After returning to Spain he married Silveria Fañanás García in 1879, with whom he had four daughters and three sons. In 1877, he received his Doctor Of Medicine Degree in Madrid. Ramon y Cajal was appointed as a professor of the Universidad de Valencia in 1881. He later held professorships in both Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
and Madrid. He was a Director of the Zaragoza Museum (1879), director of the National Institute of Hygiene (1899), and founder of the (1922), later renamed to the , or Cajal Institute
Cajal Institute
The Cajal Institute in Madrid is the largest neuroscience research center in Spain.The histologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal founded the Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas in 1902 which later became the Instituto Cajal upon his retirement in 1922.The scientific activities of the institute...
. He died in Madrid in 1934, at the age of 82.
Works and theories
Inflammation
Inflammation is part of the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. Inflammation is a protective attempt by the organism to remove the injurious stimuli and to initiate the healing process...
, the microbiology of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, and the structure of epithelial cells and tissues. It was not until he moved to the University of Barcelona in 1887 that he learned Golgi
Camillo Golgi
Camillo Golgi was an Italian physician, pathologist, scientist, and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Camillo Golgi was born in the village of Corteno, Lombardy, then part of the Austrian Empire. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father was a physician and district medical officer...
's silver nitrate
Silver nitrate
Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . This compound is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides...
preparation and turned his attention to the central nervous system
Central nervous system
The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish...
. During this period he made extensive studies of neural material covering many species and most major regions of the brain.
Ramón y Cajal made several major contributions to neuroanatomy. He discovered the axonal growth cone, and provided the definitive evidence for what would later be known as "neuron theory", experimentally demonstrating that the relationship between nerve cells was not one of continuity, but rather of contiguity. "Neuron theory" stands as the foundation of modern neuroscience.
He provided detailed descriptions of cell types associated with neural structures, and produced excellent depictions of structures and their connectivity.
He was an advocate of the existence of spines, although he did not recognize them as the site of contact from presynaptic cells. He was a proponent of polarization of nerve cell function and his student Lorente de No would continue this study of input/output systems into cable theory
Cable theory
Classical cable theory uses mathematical models to calculate the flow of electric current along passive neuronal fibers particularly dendrites that receive synaptic inputs at different sites and times...
and some of the earliest circuit analysis of neural structures.
In the debate of the neural network theories (neuron theory, reticular theory) Ramón y Cajal was a fierce defender of the neuron theory.
He discovered a new type of cell, to be named after him: the interstitial cell of Cajal
Interstitial cell of Cajal
The Interstitial cell of Cajal is a type of interstitial cell found in the gastrointestinal tract that serves as a pacemaker which creates the basal electrical rhythm leading to contraction of the smooth muscle ....
(ICC). This is not neural or glial, but a cell that is something in between, vitally mediating neurotransmission from nerves to bowel smooth muscle cells.
In his 1894 Croonian Lecture
Croonian Lecture
The Croonian Lectures are prestigious lectureships given at the invitation of the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians.Among the papers of William Croone at his death in 1684, was a plan to endow one lectureship at both the Royal Society and the Royal College of Physicians...
, he suggested in an extended metaphor that cortical pyramidal cells may become more elaborate with time, as a tree grows and extends its branches. He also devoted a considerable amount of his time to studying hypnosis (which he used to help his wife with birth labor) and parapsychological phenomena, but a book he had written on these areas got lost during the Spanish Civil War.
Distinctions and books
Among his many distinctions and societal memberships, Ramón y Cajal was also made an honorary Doctor of MedicineHonorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
of the Universities of Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
and Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
and honorary Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
of the Clark University
Clark University
Clark University is a private research university and liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts.Founded in 1887, it is the oldest educational institution founded as an all-graduate university. Clark now also educates undergraduates...
.
He published over 100 scientific works and articles in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Among his most notable were Rules and advices on scientific investigation, Histology, Degeneration and regeneration of the nervous system, Manual of normal histology and micrographic technique, Elements of histology, Manual of general Anatomic Pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
, New ideas on the fine anatomy of the nerve centres, Textbook on the nervous system of man and the vertebrate
Vertebrate
Vertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
s, and The retina
Retina
The vertebrate retina is a light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye. The optics of the eye create an image of the visual world on the retina, which serves much the same function as the film in a camera. Light striking the retina initiates a cascade of chemical and electrical...
of vertebrates.
In 1905, he published five science-fictional "Vacation Stories" under the pen name "Dr. Bacteria."
In 1906 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
together with an Italian man of science, Golgi 'in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system'. This was seen as quite controversial owing to the fact Golgi, a stout reticularist, disagreed with Cajal in his view of the neurone doctrine.
The asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
117413 Ramonycajal
117413 Ramonycajal
117413 Ramonycajal is an asteroid discovered by Juan Lacruz on January 8, 2005. Its provisional name was '. It was named after Santiago Ramón y Cajal.-External links:*...
is named in his honour.david f.
External links
- Fishman RS. (2007). The Nobel Prize of 1906. Arch Ophthalmol. 125:690-4. (Review of the work of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineNobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
winners Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal) - The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906
- Life and discoveries of Cajal
- Special Collection: Santiago Ramón y Cajal (University of Barcelona Library)
- Brief overview of Cajal's career