Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born in Petilla, Aragón, Spain, on March 1, 1852. His father, a professor of applied anatomy, wanted young Santiago to pursue a medical career and enrolled his son first at the College of the Aesculpian Fathers and later at the Institute at Huesca. Young Ramón y Cajal was not really interested in medicine, however, and he left school to become apprenticed first to a barber, then to a shoemaker. At the age of 16, he returned to his formal education, entering the University of Saragossa. There he began studying the only medical subject in which he was really interested: anatomy. After graduation, Ramón y Cajal entered military service but, after contracting malaria in Cuba, he was discharged. He then returned to Saragossa, where he was made director of the museum in 1879. In 1883, he received a doctor of medicine...