A history of Cajal

Written By Amman Ahmed

Introduction

Science is an inherently collaborative field, where each discovery stands on the shoulders of another, tracing back through centuries of labour and dedication to the pursuit of knowledge. This journey is often painted with monochrome colours- depicted as a cold set of experiments in a lab which are destined to fall into an unhumorous article. 

But, in reality, this scientific process is far more brightly coloured than we realise. The neurones in use right now to parse every word on your page were mapped out with great scientific talent, but also a mighty understanding of art. Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934)l was a man who can not be summed up in any one title. He was a histologist as much as he was an artist, he was a medical professional but also a teacher. Cajal worked tirelessly with endless admiration for his craft to give us the foundations for our understanding of the brain’s architecture. As such, it is essential we take some time to appreciate the journey of the father of modern neuroscience.

Childhood

Cajal experienced a childhood full of wonder and excitement you can only imagine in a post-iPad world. In his autobiography, Recollections of My Life, he describes his interests in art, wildlife and mischief. The latter is highlighted on many occasions, but one stands out in particular. At age 11, feeling unsatisfied with the humble violence of slings and arrows, Cajal opted to construct a cannon. Through much labour he was able to bring it to a presentable state and welcomed his friends to his invention’s trial run. Somewhat surprisingly, he was successful in the shot, leaving a hole in a neighbour’s gate.

This transgression earned him a stay in the town’s prison - a punishment his father not only supported, but added onto, deciding he should be denied food. Fortunately for Cajal, his mother and her friend were able to sneak in sustenance and he made it through the imprisonment. This dynamic between Cajal and his father is central to not only the stories of his childhood, but arguably the entire trajectory of his life.

His father worked as a doctor, putting himself through medical school by working as a barber and living in privation. This work ethic is a trait Cajal praised and was immensely grateful to have inherited. However, their personalities begin to stray on the matter of art. His father was a man of intellectualism and had a great distaste for anything that deviated from the service of an objective purpose. Cajal, on the other hand, found great joy in art and creation, describing his pencil as a “magic wand” that entertained him for great portions of his childhood. At age eight, Cajal’s art was put to the test. A famous plasterer, and friend of his father, was asked to review some of his artwork in order to provide them with a clear understanding of how talented Cajal was. “What a daub!” With that proclamation, Cajal’s dreams were erased from his future. His father declared that he should now focus on pursuing a career in medicine instead. This instance exemplifies what Cajal described as a “war of duty and desire” between medicine and art. At that point, the two disciplines seemed like immutable ideas that could never find equal places in Cajal’s life.

Professional Life

At age twenty-one Cajal graduated with a Licentiate in Medicine and was set to study further with his father; but plans changed as he was pulled away by the claws of military service. At first he took the role of recruit, living in barracks among all the other enlisted men his age. But he was able to rise the ranks to lieutenant, serving as an assistant physician within the army. His role soon took him to Cuba, where he unfortunately fell ill with both malaria and tuberculosis. It was after his recovery that he decided he would pursue academics professionally. Many influential forces interacted with him throughout this time, but two men in particular led him toward his legacy. 

The first was Professor Aureliano Maestre de San Juan. He took interest in Cajal throughout his life, to the point where Cajal describes his praise as a “moral tonic of the first order”, but what stands out is that he introduced Cajal to his first ever histology slides. With this, he opened the door to the field that would house Cajal for the rest of his life. But for these slides to gain their power, Dr Luis Simarro had to play his role. For many years, the Golgi staining method had gone underused and ignored as ineffective. But Dr Simarro presented to Cajal the first ever good stainings he had seen with the method. Cajal savoured this moment, emphasising the value of seeing the slides first hand with his own perception, rather than reading about them in some book.

Cajal reasons that the Golgi method went underused due to the tacit agreement of students to never dare to use a method they were not directly taught by their teachers. Furthermore, these teachers are too prideful to attempt to use another scientist’s methods. This arrogance created a cycle where only specific methods were perpetuated. Fortunately, Cajal took hold of Golgi’s greatness and revived the method, using it to reshape the perception of the nervous system entirely.

Camillo Golgi himself believed in the reticular theory of the nervous system — an idea that all neurones exist in a continuous circuit with current flowing between them. This theory was disproved by Golgi’s own method, through the work of Cajal. With thorough examination of his stained slides, Cajal began to map out the morphology of every neurone he could see. This work held greater weight partly in thanks to his artistic abilities. 

His awareness of perspective and dimension enabled him to construct images that surpassed the well-argued subjectivity of other micro-photography at the time. With his drawings and the theories of Wilhelm His and August Forel, Cajal presented the neurone doctrine: that every nerve cell exists as an individual cell with complex connections to other nerve cells and information flowing from dendrite to axon. Together, Golgi and Cajal were awarded the Nobel Prize, which was significant for two reasons. First, because no one had ever shared the prize in medicine or physiology previously and, secondly, because Golgi still resisted Cajal’s ideas. It was only many decades later, with the use of the electron microscope, that viewing the neurone cell membrane definitively proved that Cajal was correct. Unfortunately, Golgi didn’t live to see this.

Even if Golgi couldn’t agree with Cajal, many others began to praise him for his work. August Köelliker, a prominent German histologist ensured Cajal received the recognition he deserved, pushing for his compiled theories to be translated and published internationally. This promoted his discoveries to the wider scientific community, who quickly adopted his teachings. Meanwhile, the King of Spain ordered the construction of a laboratory in Madrid for Cajal, where he not only could work on his experiments with the latest equipment, but teach the next generation of thinkers. These students were trained in art and science in tandem,  instilling within them the same synergy that was essential to Cajal’s work.

Cajal’s Philosophy

What stands out the most to me is Cajal’s undeniable passion for his work. Throughout his autobiography he preaches the beauty of science and the natural world. We see the beginnings of his biological interests as a child, when he studied birds, their nests and their eggs, learning so much about them purely for the sake of learning. He describes how natural discoveries “..seem to have been awaiting since the beginning of the world a worthy contemplator of their beauty.” He makes no mention of a need for intelligence or privilege, but focuses on the capacity to perceive the world’s inherent beauty. This is a trait that should be within all of us, even if it's buried under the woes of a modern world.

“It is an actual fact that, leaving aside the flatteries of self-love, the garden of neurology holds out to the investigator captivating spectacles and incomparable artistic emotions. In it, my aesthetic instincts found full satisfaction at last.

Like the entomologist in pursuit of brightly coloured butterflies, my attention hunted, in the flower garden of the gray matter, cells with delicate and elegant forms, the mysterious butterflies of the soul, the beating of whose wings may someday ,who knows, clarify the secret of mental life?”

The above quote summarises the wonder of Cajal too well to be cut into pieces. Science feels like a process which must have a clear hypothesis, leading you to publishable data that potentially betters the world in some way. For Cajal, his studies may have fallen under that structure at points, but here we see that at the core of it all was an artist exploring the beauty of the brain’s aesthetics. He was a scientist looking for answers to the questions innate to the brain asking them. Cajal elevates the neurones that he so beautifully drew to a status of something more powerful than just an abstract cell in a textbook. He teaches us that each neurone is its own wonderful force of nature — a butterfly with a magnificent form that guides our soul towards consciousness.

Conclusion

Science is an inherently artistic field, where each discovery is guided by the human desire to observe the aesthetic structure of the natural world. The pursuit of knowledge is a journey which is lit up by a spectrum of colours unique to each explorer. Cajal was one of the greatest explorers leaving us with a map of the brain and an invitation to delve into the structures that make us who we are. Instructions which wait patiently for another person to take the helm and see what else lies within the flower garden of grey matter. 

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