Ramón y Cajal, Santiago Felipe

Born May 1, 1852, in Petilla de Aragón, Navarre; died Oct. 17, 1934, in Madrid. Spanish histologist.

Cajal graduated from the University of Zaragoza in 1873 and became a professor there in 1877. He was also a professor at the universities of Valencia and Barcelona. From 1892 to 1922 he was a professor at the University of Madrid, where he organized and headed a biological research laboratory, which later became an institute bearing his name.

Cajal’s research substantiated the neuron doctrine on the structure of the nervous system (1894). The author of classic works on the structure of the retina, spinal cord, cerebellum, and other parts of the nervous system, Cajal strove to understand the functional significance of the structures he discovered. He also studied embryonal histogenesis, the degeneration and regeneration of the nervous system in vertebrates (particularly of the nerves after they are injured), and the visual centers of some invertebrates. He developed many special neurohisto-logical techniques.

Cajal received a Nobel Prize in 1906 jointly with C. Golgi.