Historical Figure
Santiago Ramón y Cajal
d. 1934
Spanish neuroscientist (1852–1934)
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Biography
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish neuroscientist, pathologist, and histologist specialising in neuroanatomy, and the central nervous system. He and Camillo Golgi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906. Ramón y Cajal was the first Spaniard to win a scientific Nobel Prize. His original investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain made him a pioneer of modern neuroscience.
Timeline
The story of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, told in moments.
Graduated from medical school in Zaragoza, where his father taught anatomy. Served as a military doctor in Cuba, contracted both malaria and tuberculosis, and recovered in a Pyrenees spa town. Drawing bones during childhood summers in graveyards with his father had pushed him toward medicine.
Used an improved version of Golgi's staining method to produce the first clear images of individual nerve cells. His exquisite drawings of neurons proved that the brain was made of separate cells, not a continuous web. The "neuron doctrine" was born.
Shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Camillo Golgi, whose own staining technique he'd used. Golgi still disagreed with him on the neuron doctrine. Awkward ceremony. First Spanish scientist to win a Nobel.
In Their Own Words (12)
Knowing the conditions under which a phenomenon occurs allows us to reproduce or eliminate it at will, therefore allowing us to control and use it for the benefit of humanity. Foresight and action are the advantages we obtain from a deterministic view of phenomena.
1897
The severe constraints imposed by determinism may appear to limit philosophy in a rather arbitrary way. However, there is no denying that in the natural sciences — and especially in biology — it is a very effective tool for avoiding the innate tendency to explain the universe as a whole in terms of general laws.
1897
This history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature' s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life' s machinery or of the world around us ( p. 2).
1897
There is no doubt that the human mind is fundamentally incapable of solving these formidable problems (the origin of life, nature of matter, origin of movement, and appearance of consciousness). Our brain is an organ of action that is directed toward practical tasks; it does not appear to have been built for discovering the ultimate causes of things, but rather for determining their immediate causes and invariant relationships.
1897
The intellect is presented with phenomena marching in review before the sensory organs. It can be truly useful and productive only when limiting itself to the modest tasks of observation, description, and comparison, and of classification that is based on analogies and differences. A knowledge of underlying causes and empirical laws will then come slowly through the use of inductive methods.
1897
Artifacts (14)
Cajal on the Cerebral Cortex: An Annotated Translation of the Complete Writings
This is the first English-language publication of the complete works of the great Spanish neurohistologist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, on the cerebral cortex. The new translations include all Cajal's...
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