"in recognition of his work on the stucture of the nervous system"
SANTIAGO RAMON Y CAJAL WAS BORN MAY, 1852, IN PETILLA, an isolated village in the Spanish Pyrenees, where his father was "surgeon of the second class." The elder Ramon later extended his studies and in time became professor of anatomy at Zaragoza. The son's unfortunate early schooling, under tyrannical teachers, failed to reveal his gifts. It was followed by apprenticeship, first to a barber, then to a shoemaker. His father then undertook to teach him, particularly in osteology, which revealed the boy's talent as a draftsman. Thereafter he studied medicine at Zaragoza and was graduated in 1873. Then came compulsory service in the Spanish army, chiefly in Cuba, until 1875; during this interval he suffered severely from malaria and dysentery. After taking a medical degree at Madrid, he became a demonstrator and then, in 1877, professor of anatomy at Zaragoza; but he was soon forced to interrupt his work because of pulmonary tuberculosis. He married in 1879 and in 1884 was called to the chair of anatomy at Valencia. For a time he worked at bacteriology and serology, but turned to his proper field, histology, and in 1887 was given a chair in that subject at Barcelona. Learning of the Golgi silver stain from Luis Simarra, a neuropsychiatrist of Madrid, Ramon y Cajal developed an improvement of his own which he began to use in the study of the nervous system. This was the first of his several important innovations in staining technique. In 1889 he demonstrated his work before the German Society of Anatomists, was praised by Kolliker, and was soon acclaimed by German histologists generally. In 1892 he was appointed professor of normal histology and pathologic anatomy at Madrid. International honors now accumulated. There followed many years of intensive labor. By 1923 he had already published 237 scientific papers. He also wrote a large number of books, including not only comprehensive works on the nervous system but popular essays, a treatise on color photography, etc. He died on October 18, 1934, at the age of eighty-two.