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Santiago Ramón y Cajal Facts & Worksheets

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, considered to be the founder of modern neuroscience, was a Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist.

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Santiago Ramón y Cajal, considered to be the founder of modern neuroscience, was a Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist. He was the first to report the precise fine anatomy of the nervous system. Together with Camillo Golgi, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 making him be the first person of Spanish origin to win a scientific Nobel Prize.

See the fact file below for more information on the Santiago Ramón y Cajal or alternatively, you can download our 21-page Santiago Ramón y Cajal worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE

  • Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born on May 1, 1852 in the town of Petilla de Aragón in northeastern Spain to Antonia Cajal and Justo Ramón Casasús, who was a surgeon and Professor of Applied Anatomy.
  • Ramón y Cajal was a naughty boy who oftentimes got into trouble at school. He attended many different schools, as his family tried to find one he would settle down in and behave correctly.
  • He was a keen painter, artist, and gymnast, but he did not like the strict and sometimes violent discipline of the monks who taught at his schools.
  • Having lost his patience, his father pulled him from school, then apprenticed him to a shoemaker and barber, trying to give his son much-needed discipline and stability, which did not work out well.
  • In 1868 his anatomist father took him to graveyards where the bones of ancient burials had come to the surface, hoping that by interesting his son in drawing the bones, he would be also interested in anatomy, which worked.
  • Ramón y Cajal enrolled to study medicine at the University of Zaragoza, where his father was an anatomy teacher.
  • He performed very well at university, and ultimately in 1873, he finished his study at age 21.

THE ARMY

  • Soon after he graduated, he worked as a medical officer in the Spanish Army.
  • In 1874, his army unit was transferred to the Spanish colony of Cuba, where the Ten Years’ War of Independence (also known as the Great War and the War of ’68) had been fought since the year 1868.
  • There, he contracted tuberculosis and malaria, which almost killed him.
  • To aid his recovery, he spent time in the care of his mother and sisters in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains in northern Spain.

SCIENTIFIC CAREER

  • After returning to Spain in late 1875, he started as a graduate assistant at the University of Zaragoza.
  • In 1877, Ramon y Cajal was promoted to acting assistant professor and received his doctorate in medicine.
  • In 1879, he became the Director of the Zaragoza Museum.
  • In that same year, he married Silvería Fañanás García, a non-educated young woman, who stood at his side for the rest of their lives and with whom he had seven children (two of them died in their childhood).
  • In 1883, Ramón y Cajal moved to become an anatomy professor at the University of Valencia.
  • His early works during his time in these two universities focused on the causes of inflammation, cholera, and the structure of epithelial material.
  • In 1887 Ramón y Cajal moved to Barcelona for a professorship where he began to make serious use of Golgi’s Method, which would ultimately lead to his Nobel Prize.
  • Golgi’s Method is a silver staining method that is used to visualize nervous tissue under light microscopy.
  • In 1892, he became a professor in Madrid and stayed in this position for thirty years, until he retired in 1922.
  • He died in Madrid on October 17, 1934, aged 82, proceeding to work even on his deathbed.

WORKS AND DISCOVERIES

  • Our bodies are regulated by the interaction of the brain and the nervous system, which extends to all parts of the body.
  • The discovery of Camillo Golgi (an Italian scientist) in the 1870s that nerve cells (also known as a neurons) could be colored by the use of silver nitrate opened up new opportunities for their study.
  • In 1887, Ramon y Cajal started using Golgi’s method and completed several groundbreaking results in the years that followed. This includes an established proof of the neuron doctrine, which is now the absolute basis of neuroscience.
  • Neuron doctrine proves that each nerve cell is an independent entity, a separate cell, and that nerve synapses transfer nerve impulses from one cell to another.
  • Aside from his discoveries, he also published more than 100 scientific works and articles in Spanish, French, and German. Under the pseudonym “Dr. Bacteria,” Ramon y Cajal published five science-fiction stories called “Vacation Stories” in 1905.
  • Since the mid-20th century, his drawings depicting the arborizations (“tree growing”) of brain cells are still in use for educational and training purposes.

NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE

  • Santiago Ramón y Cajal became the first Spanish person to win a scientific Nobel Prize in 1906, an award which he shared with Camillo Golgi.
  • This caused some controversy as the two scientists held absolutely opposite views about how the nervous system worked.
  • Golgi, a staunch supporter of reticular theory, opposed Ramón y Cajal in his belief of the neuron doctrine.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Santiago Ramón y Cajal across 21 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Santiago Ramón y Cajal worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Santiago Ramón y Cajal, considered to be the founder of modern neuroscience, who was a Spanish neuroscientist and pathologist. He was the first to report the precise fine anatomy of the nervous system. Together with Camillo Golgi, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 making him be the first person of Spanish origin to win a scientific Nobel Prize.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Santiago Ramon y Cajal Facts
  • Quick Facts
  • Biography of Santiago
  • Interesting Facts
  • Significant Dates
  • It’s Story Time!
  • Important Words
  • Rival in the Novel Prize
  • Modern Neuroscience Founder
  • Label the Parts
  • System’s Importance

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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