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Historical records matching Santiago Felipe Ramón y Cajal, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1906
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About Santiago Felipe Ramón y Cajal, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1906
Santiago Ramón y Cajal ForMemRS (1 May 1852 – 18 October 1934) was a Spanish pathologist, histologist, neuroscientist and Nobel laureate. His original pioneering investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain have led him to be designated by many as the father of modern neuroscience. His medical artistry was legendary, and hundreds of his drawings illustrating the delicate arborizations of brain cells are still in use for educational and training purposes.
Biography
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was not Cajal, as so many writers call him, but rather Ramón, as his Father's last name was Ramón and his mother's Cajal. So, according to our standards, he was Dr. Ramón-Cajal, not Dr. Cajal. As a child he was transferred between many different schools because of his poor behavior and anti-authoritarian attitude. An extreme example of his precociousness and rebelliousness is his imprisonment at the age of eleven for destroying his neighbor's yard gate with a homemade cannon. He was an avid painter, artist, and gymnast, but his father neither appreciated nor encouraged these abilities. In order to tame his unruly character, his father apprenticed him to a shoemaker and barber, and as he worked Ramón was well known for his pugnacious attitude.[
Over the summer of 1868, Cajal's father, hoping to interest his son in a medical career, took him to graveyards to find human remains for anatomical study. Sketching bones was a turning point for Cajal and he subsequently did pursue studies in medicine.
Ramón y Cajal attended the medical school of the University of Zaragoza, where his father was an anatomy teacher, and graduated in 1873. 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 cure this condition, he attended the Panticosa spa-town in the Pyrenees.
After returning to Spain he married Silveria Fañanás García in 1879, with whom he had four daughters and three sons. In 1877, he received his doctorate in Medicine in Madrid and received the position of anatomy professor of the University of Valencia in 1883. He later held professorships in both Barcelona (1887) and Madrid (1892). He was also the director of the Zaragoza Museum (1879), director of the Instituto Nacional de Higiene - translated as National Institute of Hygiene - (1899), and founder of the Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas - translated as the Laboratory of Biological Investigations - (1922), later renamed to the Instituto Cajal, or Cajal Institute. He died in Madrid in 1934, at the age of 82.
He was satirist critiquing the prevalent social conditions in his country.
On Cajal's political and religious views, it was first said that "Cajal was a liberal in politics, an evolutionist in philosophy, an agnostic in religion". Nonetheless, he later regretted having left religion[8] and ultimately, he became convinced of a belief in God as a Creator, as stated during his first lecture before the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences. He joined a Masonic lodge in 1877.
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Santiago Felipe Ramón y Cajal, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1906's Timeline
| 1852 |
May 1, 1852
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Petilla de Aragón, Navarra, Navarra, Spain
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| 1934 |
October 18, 1934
Age 82
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Madrid, Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain
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