Santiago Ramón y Cajal Biography

The anatomical research of the Spanish neurohistologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal is central to the modern understanding of the nervous system. By adopting and improving the nervous-tissue staining process developed by the Italian scientist Camillo Golgi, Ramón y Cajal established that individual nerve cells, or neurons, are the basic structural unit of the nervous system. He also made important discoveries relating to the transmission of nerve impulses and the cellular structures of the brain. For his work in histology, the branch of anatomy concerned with minute tissue structures and processes, Ramón y Cajal shared with Golgi the 1906 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.

Ramón y Cajal was born on May 1, 1852, in the remote country village of Petilla de Aragon, Spain. He was the son of Justo Ramón y Casasús, a poor and self-educated barber-surgeon, and Antonia Cajal. The family subsequently moved to the university city of Zaragoza, where against considerable odds Ramón y Cajal's father earned a medical degree and became a professor of anatomy. As a young man, Ramón y Cajal was rebellious and independent-minded. He preferred drawing to studying, and although this passion for drawing would ultimately serve him well, it was vigorously opposed by his iron-willed father, who had determined that his son should become a doctor. As a disciplinary measure, his father apprenticed him to a barber and later to a shoemaker. During these apprenticeships, Ramón y Cajal also studied anatomy with his father--investigations which partially relied on bone specimens taken from a local churchyard.

When he was sixteen years old, Ramón y Cajal began medical studies at the University of Zaragoza, earning a degree in medicine in 1873. He then joined the army medical service and served as an infantry surgeon in Cuba for one year. He contracted malaria, however, which led to his discharge, and he returned to Spain. In 1879, still convalescent, he passed his examinations at Zaragoza and Madrid for his doctorate in medicine.

Ramón y Cajal was almost exclusively interested in anatomical research, and he embarked on an academic career. Beginning in 1879, Ramón y Cajal turned himself into a skilled histologist, initially working with an old, abandoned microscope he had found at the University of Zaragoza. He studied various anatomical tissues and began to publish articles on cell biology--complete with beautifully rendered ink drawings. His work was not immediately recognized in other countries, but the increasing prestige of his posts attests to his success in Spain. From 1879 to 1883, he directed the anatomical museum at the University of Zaragoza. In 1883, he assumed a professorship of descriptive anatomy at the University of Valencia, and in 1887 he became professor of histology at the University of Barcelona. In 1892, Ramón y Cajal assumed the chair of histology and pathologic anatomy at the University of Madrid, a post he retained until 1922.

Research Provides Evidence for Neuron Theory

Ramón y Cajal eventually turned to the most complex tissues, those of the nervous system. His research method now drew on Camillo Golgi's method of staining tissue samples to reveal their minute components. Under Golgi's method, a potassium dichromate-silver nitrate solution stained the nerve cells and fibers black, while the neuroglia, or supporting tissues, remained much lighter. By refining this staining technique and applying it to embryonic tissue samples, Ramón y Cajal was able to isolate the neuron as the basic component of the nervous system; he also differentiated the neuron from the ordinary cells of the body. His work supported the neuron theory, which held that the nervous system consists of a network of discrete nerve fibers that end in terminal "buttons," which never actually touch the surrounding nerve cells. Up until that time, the majority of scientists were "reticularists," who held that the nervous system formed a continuous and interconnected system. Golgi was among these, and the rivalry between the two scientists was intense. Ramón y Cajal published fierce and relentless attacks both on this theory and on the scientists who held it.

Based on his studies, Ramón y Cajal became convinced that the conduction of nerve impulses occurs in one direction only--a postulate since formalized as the law of dynamic polarization. He also conducted important research on the tissues of the inner ear and the eye, as well as the tissues of the grey matter of the brain, establishing a cellular basis for the localization of different functions within the brain. This research has formed the physiological basis for the understanding of human psychology, intelligence, and memory.

Ramón y Cajal was a prolific writer and he published many articles, textbooks, and research monographs. In 1896, he established a journal of microbiology and published his Manual de Anatomia Pathologica General ("Manual of General Pathologic Anatomy"). His major neurohistological work, Textura del Systema Nervioso del Hombre y de los Vertebrados ("Texture of the Nervous System of Man and Vertebrates"), was published from 1899 to 1904. These publications were generally printed in Spanish, often at his own expense, and they were largely ignored by the international scientific community.

His struggle for due recognition of the importance of his work came to an end in 1906, when he shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with his rival Golgi for their work on the structure of the nervous system. In an apparent effort to emphasize what the two scientists had in common, rather than their area of disagreement, they were described by the prize committee as "the principal representatives and standard-bearers of the modern science of neurology." But the tension between them over the reticular doctrine was still evident on the awards platform.

Later Research and Writing

In the same year he received the prize, Ramón y Cajal turned to the problem of the degeneration of tissue in the nervous system and the regeneration of nerve fibers that had been severed. The result of these studies, the two-volume Estudios Sobre la Degeneracion y Regeneracion del Sistema Nervioso ("Studies on the Degeneration and Regeneration of the Nervous System"), was published in 1913 and 1914. In 1913, Ramón y Cajal also developed a gold-based method of staining neuroglia; he was able to use this to classify cell types in these tissues. This research provided the basis for the medical treatment of tumors and pathological tissues in the nervous system. A tireless researcher, Ramón y Cajal also studied the eyes and vision processes of insects.

Ramón y Cajal, a patriot, was always sensitive to the international and scientific reputation of Spain and the Spanish language--issues that had a significant impact on the dissemination of his research. It was thus fitting that in 1920 King Alfonso XIII commissioned the construction of the Instituto Cajal, which secured Madrid's position as an international histological research center. Ramón y Cajal worked at this institute named in his honor from 1922 until his death. In addition to sharing the Nobel Prize, Ramón y Cajal received numerous awards and honors, including the Fauvelle Prize of the Society of Biology in Paris in 1896; the Rubio Prize in 1897; the Moscow Prize in 1900; the Martinez y Molina Prize in 1902; the Helmholtz Gold Medal of the Royal Academy of Berlin in 1905; and the Echegaray Medial in 1922. He also received honorary degrees from various foreign universities and held memberships in scientific societies worldwide. The Spanish government bestowed an impressive series of posthumous honors on him, including the republication of his works.

Ramón y Cajal married Silveria Fananas Garcia in 1880. They had three daughters and three sons. In addition to drawing, his hobbies included chess and photography, which he pursued as single-mindedly as his research. In a merging of his work and recreational interests, Ramón y Cajal developed his own photographic process for the reproduction of his delicate histological drawings.

Between 1901 and 1917, Ramón y Cajal published the installments of his autobiographical Recuerdos de mi Vida ("Recollections of My Life"). His other published works include the anecdotal Charlas de Cafe ("Conversations at the Cafe") and El Mundo Visto a los Ochenta Años ("The World as Seen at Eighty"). Ramón y Cajal died in Madrid on October 18, 1934.