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Everything we know about structure, function, and physiology in the nervous system at the cellular level, in health and disease, evolves from the concept that organisation is through the connectivity of functionally independent neurons and their processes. Santiago Ramon y Cajal distinguished neurons from glia; showed the variability of dendritic arborisations and axon terminations; established that axon cylinders end freely but form contacts; conceived that the nerve impulse is conducted between axons, dendrites, and the cell body of neighbouring neurons; had the concepts of trophism and tropism; and following Rudolph Virchow, regarded the cell as the unit of all biological systems. His most detailed studies were of the cerebellum but, in time, no part of the brain and spinal cord went unexplored. His great synthesis was to settle debate on the neuron theory. His descriptions were supplemented by beautiful drawings based on Golgi stains. He and Golgi were jointly awarded the Nobel prize for medicine in 1906. They disagreed publicly during the lectures in Stockholm.
Cajal is the most significant neuroscientist of the 20th century—Sir Charles Sherrington being his only serious …