Santiago Ramón y Cajal

About Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Who is it?: Father of Modern Neuroscience
Birth Day: May 01, 1852
Birth Place: Petilla de Aragón, Navarre, Spain, Spanish
Died On: 17 October 1934(1934-10-17) (aged 82)\nMadrid, Spain
Birth Sign: Gemini
Known for: The father of modern Neuroscience

Santiago Ramón y Cajal Net Worth

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born on May 01, 1852 in Petilla de Aragón, Navarre, Spain, Spanish, is Father of Modern Neuroscience. Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a famous Spanish pathologist, neuroscientist and histologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine. He is considered to be the father of modern neuroscience owing to his investigations of the microscopic structure of brain. He was an exquisite painter and understood visual aesthetics well and had great aptitude in transforming the visual onto the paper. His drawings of the intricate details of the brain cells are legendary specimens and they are still used to educate and train budding neurologists. Ramón y Cajal was greatly influenced by the observations of Camillo Golgi regarding the structure of the nervous system. However, while Golgi believed that the nerve cells were a widespread and continuous network; Ramón y Cajal’s work led to the conclusion that the nervous system comprised millions of separate nerve cells. This observation contributed to the advancement of cell biology and pathology. He was also into gymnastics and philosophy. Ramón y Cajal was also a talented photographer and took many photographs of his native places, friends and relatives. These are kept at the Cajal Museum in Madrid. He was a bundle of contradictions as on the one hand, he was restless and energetic and on the other hand, he was shy and solitary.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal is a member of Scientists

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Biography/Timeline

1852

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born 1 May 1852 in the town of Petilla de Aragón, Navarre, Spain. His father was an anatomy Teacher.

1863

As a child he was transferred many times from one school to another because of behavior that was declared poor, rebellious, and showing an anti-authoritarian attitude. An extreme Example of his precociousness and rebelliousness at the age of eleven is his 1863 imprisonment for destroying his neighbor's yard gate with a homemade cannon.

1868

Over the summer of 1868, his father hoped to interest his son in a medical career, and took him to graveyards to find human remains for anatomical study. Sketching bones was a turning point for him and subsequently, he did pursue studies in Medicine.

1873

Ramón y Cajal attended the medical school of the University of Zaragoza, where his father was an anatomy Teacher. He graduated in 1873, aged 21. 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. In order to heal, he visited the Panticosa spa-town in the Pyrenees.

1877

In 1877, the 25 year old Ramón y Cajal joined a Masonic lodge. John Brande Trend wrote in 1965 that Ramón y Cajal "was a liberal in politics, an evolutionist in philosophy, an agnostic in religion".

1887

In 1887 Ramón y Cajal moved to Barcelona for a professorship. There he first learned about Golgi's method, a cell staining method which uses potassium dichromate and silver nitrate to (randomly) stain a few neurons a dark black color, while leaving the surrounding cells transparent. This method, which he improved, was central to his work, allowing him to turn his attention to the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), in which neurons are so densely intertwined that standard microscopic inspection would be nearly impossible. During this period he made extensive detailed drawings of neural material, covering many species and most major regions of the brain.

1892

In 1892, he became professor at Madrid. in 1899 he became Director of the Instituto Nacional de Higiene – translated as National Institute of Hygiene , and in 1922 founder of the Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas – translated as the Laboratory of Biological Investigations , later renamed to the Instituto Cajal, or Cajal Institute.

1894

In his 1894 Croonian Lecture, Ramón y Cajal suggested (in an extended metaphor) that cortical pyramidal cells may become more elaborate with time, as a tree grows and extends its branches.

1905

In 1905, he published five science-fiction stories called "Vacation Stories" under the pen name "Dr. Bacteria".

1906

Ramón y Cajal received many prizes, distinctions, and societal memberships during his scientific career, including honorary doctorates in Medicine from Cambridge University and Würzburg University and an honorary doctorate in philosophy from Clark University. The most famous distinction he was awarded was the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906, together with the Italian scientist Camillo Golgi "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system". This caused some controversy because Golgi, a staunch supporter of reticular theory, disagreed with Ramón y Cajal in his view of the neuron doctrine.

1934

He died in Madrid on October 17, 1934, at the age of 82, continuing to work even on his deathbed.

2014

In 2014, the National Institutes of Health exhibited original Ramón y Cajal drawings in its Neuroscience Research Center.

2017

An exhibition called The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal travelled through the US beginning 2017 at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis ending April 2019 at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.