SOURCE: "1906: Camillo Golgi (1844-1926), Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934)," in Nobel Prize Winners in Medicine and Physiology 1901-1950, Henry Schuman, 1953, pp. 32-40.

In the following excerpt, Stevenson offers a brief summary of Ramón y Cajal's life and his Nobel Prize-winning research in neurophysiology.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born May 1, 1852, In Petilla, an isolated village in the Spanish Pyrenees, where his father was "surgeon of the second class." The elder Ramón later extended his studies and in time became professor of anatomy at Zaragoza. The son's unfortunate early schooling, under tyrannical teachers, failed to reveal his gifts. It was followed by apprenticeship, first to a barber, then to a shoemaker. His father then undertook to teach him, particularly in osteology, which revealed the boy's talent as a draftsman. Thereafter he studied medicine at Zaragoza and was graduated in 1873. Then came compulsory service in the...