HISTORY OF NEUROLOGY Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934 - PowerPoint Presentation

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HISTORY OF NEUROLOGY

Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934A Pioneer and Discoverer of the Nervous System-From Humble Origins

Richard J. Barohn, M.D.Gertrude and Dewey Ziegler Professor of NeurologyThe University of Kansas Medical CenterSlide2

Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934

Humble OriginsBorn in Petilla

de Aragón in Navarre, Spain (in the Pyrenees) a region occupied by baturros (people who are not very bright)Father-Justo Ramón Casasús-struggling barber surgeon, second class who amazingingly got a medical degree at University of Zaragoza-country doctor, then anatomy teacher

Cajal’s teachers declared him a doltApprenticed to a barber and shoemaker to self discipline but they said he was lazy

Went to jail for taking shots at a palace

Was very good at drawing

Father took him to graveyards to find remains for anatomical studies and had sketches for anatomy atlas father was making (never published) Became interested in anatomy and this led to medical school

Was a gymnast

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934

1873-Med School University of Zaragoza Then: Regimental surgeon-Cuba (got TB and malaria!) 1877-Assistant and then Professor of Anatomy, U. Zaragoza -Began histologic studies which made him famous -Almost no lab funds so he put as many sections on a slide that he could

1887-In Barcelona, used silver impregnation staining of nervous system that was developed by Golgi in Italy (1870)Used old Verick microscope Sent first paper to The Catholic Daily

in Zaragoza of a nerve cell and it’s emergent fiber-Then “groped to find another” Sent reprints throughout Europe-initially no response And Ridiculed by his peers in Zaragoza for his egotism

1884-Professor Anatomy, Valencia

1887-Professor Anatomy, Barcelona

1982-University of Madrid Cajal with Verick microscopes

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934

Spreading Fame Sent early papers beyond Pyrenees-they were accepted-Editors then began to seek him out1889-Demonstrated silver impregnation of brain sections at Berlin meeting- German Anatomical Society 1894-Croonian Lecture at Royal Society, London -Oxford honorary degree

-Both arranged by Sherrington Then went to US to speak after Spanish/American War1906-Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Camillo Golgi

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934

1922-Established Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas in University of MadridLater called Cajal InstituteMany trainees-a “school” was formed

250 papers-normal and pathological histology of nervous system in animals and man Initial Writings 1889-Manual of Normal Histology and Micrographic Technique

1890-Manual of General Pathological Anatomy- 7 Editions1897-Elements of Histology

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934

Neuron Doctrine Demonstrated relationship between nerve cells was continuous and showed how nerve cells are connected.Supported neuron theory (not reticular-Golgi)

Nerve cell is an independent entityNerve synapses transfer nerve impulses from one cell to another

Structure of Central Nervous System in Birds (1905)

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal

MDNeuroscience books 1894-The Retina of Vertebrates

1894-New Ideas on the Fine Anatomy of the Nervous System1905-Structure of the Nervous System in Birds

1899

-Compartive Study of the Sensory Areas of the Human Cortex

1917-

Degeneration and Regeneration of the Nervous System

1909-Histology of the Nervous System of Man and VertebratesSlide8

Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934

Famous Pupils

Nicolás Achúcarro y Lund

Jorge Francisco

Tello

Rafael

Lorente de Nó

Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora

Pío del Río HortegaSlide9

Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD 1852-1934

“In the intricate warp of the brain one can advance only step by step, and if one is to do so safely, the front trenches must be dug by men like Theodor Meynert, Camillo Golgi, Ludwig Edinger, Paul Emile Flesheig, Albert von Kölliker ,Auguste

Forel, and the other great ones…”“I threw myself into the task with the sure faith that in the dark thicket, where so many explorers had been lost, I should capture, if not lions and tigers, at least some modest game scorned by the great hunters.”

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD

Nobel Lecture December 12, 1906 “From my researches as a whole, there derives a general conception which compromises the following propositions:

The nerve cells are morphological entities, neurons…My celebrated colleague Professor Golgi has already demonstrated this property with respect to the dendritic processes of the nerve cells; but at the beginning of our research there were only vague conjectures as regards the behavior of the axon branches and collaterals. We applied Golgi’s method, firstly in the cerebellum and then in the spinal cord, the cerebrum, the olfactory bulb, the optic lobe, the retina and so on of embryos and young animals, and our observations revealed, in my opinion, the terminal arrangement of the nerve

fibres. These fibres…always proceed toward the neuronal body…the nerve elements possesses reciprocal relationships in contiguity

but not

in continuity

. These facts imply…three physiologic postulates: The nerve currents are transmitted from one element to the other as a consequence of a sort of induction or influence from a distance…the cell bodies and the dendrites are, in the same way as the axis cylinders, conductive devicesThe examination of the movement of nervous impulses in the sensory organs such as the retina, the olfactory bulb, the sensory ganglia and the spinal cord proves not only that the protoplasmic expansions play a conducting role but even more that the nervous movement of these prolongation is toward the cell or axon. “Slide11

Camillo Golgi MD 1843-1926

Born in

Corteno (Lombardy, Italy) small townFather practiced medicine

1865-MD from University di Pavia 1865-1872-Resident in Pavia, Instituto di Pathologia Generale Published on pellagra and small pox

Read Virchow’s

Cellular Pathology

and decided to study the nervous system 1870-First papers on neuroglia of cortex and white matterWorked isolated in small lab in small town with microscope; often by candlelightDiscovered a chromate of silver method for staining nervous tissueRevolutionized concept of histologic structure of nervous system

Published this in 1873 and 18751875-U Pavia and spent remainder of his academic life Many students : Marchi, Monti, Sala, Negri

…1883-Studi Sulla fina anatomia Delhi organi centrali del system nervosa Believed nerve fibers in cortex, efferent and afferent, lose individuality and break up into many secondary branches forming networks/reticula

Argued with Cajal about this for years 1906-In Nobel Prize speech, bitter denunciation of Cajal

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD Recollections of My Life

1901-1917On Nobel Prize and Golgi

I must state that in the aforesaid lecture I made a cordial eulogy of my colleague, Professor C. Golgi…Contrary to what we all expected, he attempted in it to refloat his almost forgotten theory of interstitial nets…

He made a display of pride and self-worship so immoderate that they produced a deplorable effect upon the assembly…I have never understood these strange mental constitutions which are devoted throughout life to the worship of their own egos, hermetically sealed to all innovation…What a cruel irony of fate to pair like Siamese twins united by the shoulders, scientific adversaries of such contrasting character!...

My colleague displayed the same Olympic pride and pretentious mien in his toast at the official banquet…

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD Recollections of My Life

On others receiving Nobel Prize: JJ Thomson (Physics-nature of electricity) Theodore Roosevelt (Peace) “

Is it not the same height of irony and good humor to convert into a champion of pacifism the man of the most impetuously pugnacious temperament and the most determined imperialist that the United States have ever produced?” –Cajal

Theodore Roosevelt with Russian and Japanese diplomats. Won Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) Slide14

Pyramidal neurons of the cerebral cortex and their axon pathways

The Beautiful Brain

The Drawings by

Santiago Ramón y

Cajal

Edited with commentaries by Eric A. Newman, Alfonso

Araque, and Janet M. Dubinsky

Essays by Larry W. Swanson, Lyndel King, and Eric Himmel

Structure and connections of the hippocampus

The Beautiful Brain (2016)

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Santiago

Ramón y Cajal MD Chácharas de Café 1923

The most effective and economical of all reactions to injury is silenceNever become intimate with the friends of your enemies; they are spies, reporting upon your errors and defects

It is best to attenuate the virulence of your adversaries with the chloroform of courtesy and flatteryPeople are neither good nor bad but spiritless, distracted, lazy and generally tardy or forgetful of duty Beauty is a letter of credit signed by God and often directed into false channels by the devil

The human brain is a world consisting of a number of continents and great stretches of unknown territory. It’s vast potentialities are ignored and unsuspected by the commoner run of laymen. The cultivated man tries to discover its occult treasures

Let the visions and idles say what they chose, agreeable and useful work remains the best of distractions

Nothing is so distracting to old men as to occupy themselves with history in other words, with the lives and deeds of men more antique than themselvesIf death were like the consoling dreamless sleep depicted by ancient philosophers we should desire it. But Freud has shown that sleep is a theater of far more disconcerting actionSlide16

Santiago

Ramón y CajalSlide17

Santiago Ramón y Cajal MD

Advice for a Young Investigator 1898English Translation 1999Beginner Traps:

Excessive admiration of the work of great minds is one of the most unfortunate preoccupations of intellectual youth Another false concept: Everything of major importance in the various areas of science has already been clarifiedAnother Corruption of thought that is important to battle at all costs is the false distinction between theoretical and applied science with accompanying praise of the latter and deprecation of the former

Some people claim lack of ability for science to justify failure and discouragement. “I enjoy laboratory work” they tell us, “ but am no good at discovering things”…Might they exaggerate how difficult the task will be and underestimate their own abilities?Indispensable qualities for the research worker include independent judgement, intellectual curiosity, perseverance , devotion to country, and a burning desire for reputation. Slide18
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Cajal

monument crafted

by the sculptor Victorio Macho in

1926Slide20

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Parque del Buen Retiro in Paseo de Venezuela, Madrid

Spain,

July

2017