Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2144

SANTIAGO RAMóN Y CAJAL (1852-1934) Les nouvelles idées sur la structure de système nerveux chez l'homme et chez les vertébres. C. Reinwald 1894 xvi, 200 [3] pp., 49 illus. 22.4 cm.

Ramón y Cajal is recognized as one of the great histologists of all time, particularly for his fundamental studies on the cellular structure of the nervous system. He was born in Petilla de Aragon, a small village in the Spanish Pyrenees. Ramón y Cajal studied medicine at Zaragoza, where he received his degree in 1873. After service in the Spanish Army in Cuba, he obtained a doctor's degree from Madrid and in 1877 was appointed professor of anatomy at Zaragoza. His career was interrupted for a time because of pulmonary tuberculosis, after which he served as professor of anatomy at Valencia, professor of histology at Barcelona, and in 1892 he assumed the chair of histology and pathological anatomy at Madrid. Together with Golgi, Ramón y Cajal was awarded the Nobel prize in 1906 for their many contributions into man's understanding of the structure and function of the nervous system. Making his own improvements on Golgi's stain techniques, Ramón y Cajal discovered cells and structures in the nervous system that had never before been seen. He chronicled the life history, structure, and working mechanism of the neuron and, in so doing, created an histological approach to the study of the central nervous system. His work and ideas were expressed in over two hundred papers and close to fifteen books. The present work is based on lectures he presented at the Academia y laboratorio de ciencias médicas de Cataluna and published in the Revista de ciencias médicas de Barcelona in 1892 as "Nuevo concepto de la histologia de los centros nerviosos." A French translation by Leon Azoulay (fl. 1850) appeared at Paris in 1893 in La bulletin médical and this greatly expanded work was published the following year. In addition to more and later reports on Ramón y Cajal's research, it contains forty-nine illustrations of cells and tissue strata as well as much detail on the handling, staining, and interpretation of the studies of prepared specimens. The preface is by Mathias Marie Duval (1844-1907) who discovered the technique of fixation of tissue in collodion blocks for sectioning and microscopic study.

Cited references: Waller 7735

Gift of John Martin, M.D.