Santiago Ramon y Cajal, 1852-1954

Abstract

It can be stated that Ramon y Cajal, a Spaniard, was the greatest neuroanatomist the world has ever known. He lived and worked in Madrid. His interpretation of the nervous system is embodied in his 2,000 page 'Histologie du Systeme Nerveux', certainly the greatest book in neuroanatomy. Yet, virtually all his neuroanatomical work was done in the 14 yr between 1888 and 1903. The silver chromate method of impregnation had been discovered by Golgi in 1873. Cajal invented the silver reduction method which bears his name, but he used it only for cytology. The elucidation of the precise neuronal organization of the cerebellum was his first victory, and his greatest. Next, he tackled the retina of birds. Cajal turned eventually to the cerebral cortex, the essential pattern of which had been already demonstrated by Golgi. Cajal worked out the specific neuron types of the principle neocortical areas and though he went far to demonstrate specific working mechanisms, he gradually realized that 'the supreme cunning of the grey matter is so intricate that it defies and will defy for many centuries the obstinate curiosity of investigators'. Cajal quit central neuroanatomy because he believed he had carried it as far as he could and it turned out that this was so; no one else has come up with much from the impregnation methods. The thalamus, which he neglected, has proven unadaptable to them, no one has seen much more in cerebellar anatomy, and other Golgi studies of cerebral cortex are quite repetitive of Cajal.