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Recuerdos de mi vida #1-2
Cajal: Recollections of My Life
Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) es, sin lugar a dudas, el científico más importante que ha dado España en toda su historia, y uno de los que por derecho propio pertenecen al selecto grupo de los grandes de la ciencia de todos los tiempos. Pero no sólo fue Cajal grande por la ciencia que creó, también está su vida, plena de actividades y empeños. Y para acercarse tanto a su vida como a su ciencia, ningún instrumento es mejor que su autobiografía, Recuerdos de mi vida, un libro que desde 1923 no había sido editado completo, esto es, sin fragmentarlo escogiendo una de sus dos partes, “Mi infancia y juventud” o “Mi labor científica”, y que ahora vuelve a ver aquí la luz, introducido por el profesor de Biología de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Juan Fernández Santarén, uno de los mejores especialistas en Cajal. Como complemento se incluye un documento de gran valor y muy poco el Post-scriptum que Ramón y Cajal añadió a la segunda edición (1899) –únicamente en esta edición– de otro de sus clásicos, el texto del discurso que pronunció al entrar a formar parte (1897) de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, titulado en versiones posteriores Reglas y consejos sobre investigación científica. En ningún lugar como en estas líneas mostró mejor Santiago Ramón y Cajal cuánto amó y se preocupó por España.
688 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1966
17 people are currently reading
406 people want to read
About the author
Santiago Ramón y Cajal
191 books119 followersSantiago Ramón y Cajal ForMemRS (Spanish: [sanˈtjaɣo raˈmon i kaˈxal]; 1 May 1852 – 18 October 1934) was a Spanish pathologist, histologist, neuroscientist and Nobel laureate. His original pioneering investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain have led him to be designated by many as the father of modern neuroscience. His medical artistry was legendary, and hundreds of his drawings illustrating the delicate arborizations of brain cells are still in use for educational and training purposes.
Ramón y Cajal's early work was accomplished at the Universities of Zaragoza and Valencia, where he focused on the pathology of inflammation, the microbiology of cholera, and the structure of Epithelial cells and tissues. It was not until he moved to the University of Barcelona in 1887 that he learned Golgi's silver nitrate preparation and turned his attention to the central nervous system. During this period he made extensive studies of neural material covering many species and most major regions of the brain.
Ramón y Cajal made several major contributions to neuroanatomy. He discovered the axonal growth cone, and experimentally demonstrated that the relationship between nerve cells was not continuous but contiguous. This provided definitive evidence for what would later be known as "neuron doctrine", now widely considered the foundation of modern neuroscience. In debating neural network theories (e.g. neuron theory, reticular theory), Ramón y Cajal was a fierce defender of the neuron theory.
He provided detailed descriptions of cell types associated with neural structures, and produced excellent depictions of structures and their connectivity.
He was an advocate of the existence of dendritic spines, although he did not recognize them as the site of contact from presynaptic cells. He was a proponent of polarization of nerve cell function and his student Rafael Lorente de Nó would continue this study of input/output systems into cable theory and some of the earliest circuit analysis of neural structures.
He discovered a new type of cell, to be named after him: the interstitial cell of Cajal (ICC). This cell is found interleaved among neurons embedded within the smooth muscles lining the gut, serving as the generator and pacemaker of the slow waves of contraction that move material along the gastrointestine, vitally mediating neurotransmission from motor nerves to smooth muscle cells.
In his 1894 Croonian Lecture, he suggested in an extended metaphor that cortical pyramidal cells may become more elaborate with time, as a tree grows and extends its branches. He also devoted a considerable amount of his time to studying hypnosis (which he used to help his wife with birth labor) and parapsychological phenomena, but a book he had written on these areas got lost during the Spanish Civil War.
Cajal received many prizes, distinctions and societal memberships along his scientific career including and honorary Doctorates in Medicine of the Universities of Cambridge and Würzburg and an honorary Doctorate in Philosophy of the Clark University. Nevertheless the most famous distinction he was awarded was the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 together with Italian Camillo Golgi "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system". This was seen as quite controversial because Golgi, a stout reticularist, disagreed with Cajal in his view of the neuron doctrine.
The asteroid 117413 Ramonycajal is named in his honor. The Spanish public television filmed a biopic series to commemorate his life.
Ramón y Cajal's early work was accomplished at the Universities of Zaragoza and Valencia, where he focused on the pathology of inflammation, the microbiology of cholera, and the structure of Epithelial cells and tissues. It was not until he moved to the University of Barcelona in 1887 that he learned Golgi's silver nitrate preparation and turned his attention to the central nervous system. During this period he made extensive studies of neural material covering many species and most major regions of the brain.
Ramón y Cajal made several major contributions to neuroanatomy. He discovered the axonal growth cone, and experimentally demonstrated that the relationship between nerve cells was not continuous but contiguous. This provided definitive evidence for what would later be known as "neuron doctrine", now widely considered the foundation of modern neuroscience. In debating neural network theories (e.g. neuron theory, reticular theory), Ramón y Cajal was a fierce defender of the neuron theory.
He provided detailed descriptions of cell types associated with neural structures, and produced excellent depictions of structures and their connectivity.
He was an advocate of the existence of dendritic spines, although he did not recognize them as the site of contact from presynaptic cells. He was a proponent of polarization of nerve cell function and his student Rafael Lorente de Nó would continue this study of input/output systems into cable theory and some of the earliest circuit analysis of neural structures.
He discovered a new type of cell, to be named after him: the interstitial cell of Cajal (ICC). This cell is found interleaved among neurons embedded within the smooth muscles lining the gut, serving as the generator and pacemaker of the slow waves of contraction that move material along the gastrointestine, vitally mediating neurotransmission from motor nerves to smooth muscle cells.
In his 1894 Croonian Lecture, he suggested in an extended metaphor that cortical pyramidal cells may become more elaborate with time, as a tree grows and extends its branches. He also devoted a considerable amount of his time to studying hypnosis (which he used to help his wife with birth labor) and parapsychological phenomena, but a book he had written on these areas got lost during the Spanish Civil War.
Cajal received many prizes, distinctions and societal memberships along his scientific career including and honorary Doctorates in Medicine of the Universities of Cambridge and Würzburg and an honorary Doctorate in Philosophy of the Clark University. Nevertheless the most famous distinction he was awarded was the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 together with Italian Camillo Golgi "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system". This was seen as quite controversial because Golgi, a stout reticularist, disagreed with Cajal in his view of the neuron doctrine.
The asteroid 117413 Ramonycajal is named in his honor. The Spanish public television filmed a biopic series to commemorate his life.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 29, 2017
I wish I could give this book a better rating, as I find the story of Cajal fascinating and his work inspiring.
The bad:
The language in this book is so extravagant and impenetrable that I was severely disappointed (and sometimes provoked).
Some quotes:
"I realized bitterly that the extravagant romanticism which I had acquired during my adolescence from my foolish perusal of Chateubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, and Espronceda has poisoned my mind. Because of it, I had consumed in trivialities all the rich patrimony of constitutional energy inherited from my elders. In my desperation, I because a misanthrope and got to the point of despising the most holy and venerable things."
Translation: The author got ill and depressed as a teen.
"I made some resistance at first to the brutal games and to the undesirable escapades of climbing into orchards and stealing fruits. But the spirit of imitation was more powerful in me than the wise counsel of my parents and the commandments of Decalogue."
Translation: The author once scrumped apples as a child.
This book contains 600 thick pages of this writing style.
The good:
There are very interesting accounts of early neuroscience in this book, and also some of Cajal's amazing artwork.
The passages about hypnosis (accounts of course only from hyponosis on individuals "free of neurotic taint", such as physicians and lawyers) and mediums are quite interesting to the contemporary neuroscientist.
There are also several amusing statements such as the following:
"The second lesson was the discovery, rather late, that physical exercise on the part of men devoted to study should be moderate and brief, without ever passing the stage of fatigue. It is a common phenomenon, but one which is rather overlooked by educators of the English school, that strenous sports rapidly diminish the aptitude for intellectual work.
When night comes, the brain, tired out by the excess of motor discharges - which seem to absorb the energies of the whole cerebral mechanism - falls upon books with the inertia of a paperweight. In such circumstances the structural differentiation of the central nervous system seems to be suspended or retarded; it might be said that the higher regions of the gray matter are repressed and, as it were, choked by the motor areas.
Such compensatory processes explain why most young people who excel in sports and other physical exercises have not much to say and have relatively poor and simple intellects".
Personally, I would safely say that this book illustrates why even eminent scientists need strict editors.
The bad:
The language in this book is so extravagant and impenetrable that I was severely disappointed (and sometimes provoked).
Some quotes:
"I realized bitterly that the extravagant romanticism which I had acquired during my adolescence from my foolish perusal of Chateubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Lord Byron, and Espronceda has poisoned my mind. Because of it, I had consumed in trivialities all the rich patrimony of constitutional energy inherited from my elders. In my desperation, I because a misanthrope and got to the point of despising the most holy and venerable things."
Translation: The author got ill and depressed as a teen.
"I made some resistance at first to the brutal games and to the undesirable escapades of climbing into orchards and stealing fruits. But the spirit of imitation was more powerful in me than the wise counsel of my parents and the commandments of Decalogue."
Translation: The author once scrumped apples as a child.
This book contains 600 thick pages of this writing style.
The good:
There are very interesting accounts of early neuroscience in this book, and also some of Cajal's amazing artwork.
The passages about hypnosis (accounts of course only from hyponosis on individuals "free of neurotic taint", such as physicians and lawyers) and mediums are quite interesting to the contemporary neuroscientist.
There are also several amusing statements such as the following:
"The second lesson was the discovery, rather late, that physical exercise on the part of men devoted to study should be moderate and brief, without ever passing the stage of fatigue. It is a common phenomenon, but one which is rather overlooked by educators of the English school, that strenous sports rapidly diminish the aptitude for intellectual work.
When night comes, the brain, tired out by the excess of motor discharges - which seem to absorb the energies of the whole cerebral mechanism - falls upon books with the inertia of a paperweight. In such circumstances the structural differentiation of the central nervous system seems to be suspended or retarded; it might be said that the higher regions of the gray matter are repressed and, as it were, choked by the motor areas.
Such compensatory processes explain why most young people who excel in sports and other physical exercises have not much to say and have relatively poor and simple intellects".
Personally, I would safely say that this book illustrates why even eminent scientists need strict editors.
January 19, 2011
Cajal's autobiography made me want to dedicate my life to Neuroscience and understanding the brain. This is a great autobiography for the budding neuroscientist.
November 17, 2019
Cajal is one of the fathers of neuroscience. Using techniques of staining cells that he perfected, Cajal described neurons, showed how neurons grew with growth cones, and indicated how neural impulses spread from cell to cell. His autobiography is written in an ornate, formal 19th century style, so it reads like novels of that era. The translator chose to stay as close to Spanish as possible, making it even more formal-sounding. There is so much is this 600 page book. I make some random jottings, hopefully to give some sense of the book's charm.
1. The most-used word about himself and his work is "modest". This comes from a man many times honored including the 1906 Noble Prize.
2. Speaking of the Nobel, Cajal won in Medicine the same year Teddy Roosevelt won for Peace. This pained the Spaniard Cajal as only a few years earlier, Roosevelt was charging up San Juan Hill in Cuba to wrest Cuba from Spain. Cajal says of Roosevelt, "Is it not the acme of irony and 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?"
3. Cajal is painfully aware of the low provincial nature of science in Spain, compared to Germany, France, and England in the first rank, and Hungary and Italy following. He considers his success as a patriotic contribution to Spain's standing in the world.
4. Cajal's first love was art, and much of his fame a century later rests on his exquisite drawings of cells in the nervous system.
5. Scientific advances often depend on advances in technology. For Cajal, it was the ability to stain particular cells with particular dyes, thus making them visible for study.
6. Despite all of the advances, scientists today behave similarly to those more than a century ago.
I should have read Cajal's book 50 years ago as a young scientist , but I am not sure that I would have had the patience for it.
1. The most-used word about himself and his work is "modest". This comes from a man many times honored including the 1906 Noble Prize.
2. Speaking of the Nobel, Cajal won in Medicine the same year Teddy Roosevelt won for Peace. This pained the Spaniard Cajal as only a few years earlier, Roosevelt was charging up San Juan Hill in Cuba to wrest Cuba from Spain. Cajal says of Roosevelt, "Is it not the acme of irony and 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?"
3. Cajal is painfully aware of the low provincial nature of science in Spain, compared to Germany, France, and England in the first rank, and Hungary and Italy following. He considers his success as a patriotic contribution to Spain's standing in the world.
4. Cajal's first love was art, and much of his fame a century later rests on his exquisite drawings of cells in the nervous system.
5. Scientific advances often depend on advances in technology. For Cajal, it was the ability to stain particular cells with particular dyes, thus making them visible for study.
6. Despite all of the advances, scientists today behave similarly to those more than a century ago.
I should have read Cajal's book 50 years ago as a young scientist , but I am not sure that I would have had the patience for it.
January 25, 2023
Fantastic autobiography, Cajal was truly a genius. His life was very interesting, his science work dynamic, his philosophical remarks and comments on education, science, modesty, and moral are refreshing!
October 10, 2019
[...[Συγγραφείς που διάγουν ένα γαλήνιο, ήρεμο και πράο βίο θα συγγράψουν δράματα, ελεγείες, θρήνους, νουβέλες ή μελαγχολικά διηγήματα.
Αυτοί που ζουν ένα πραγματικό δράμα, θα αναζητήσουν στη φαντασία κάποια ανακούφιση και παρηγοριά από τις πικρίες και θα συγγράψουν χρονογραφήματα, χαρούμενους στίχους, ευχάριστα και χαρμόσυνα διηγήματα ή πικάντικα ανέκδοτα. [...]
Αυτοί που ζουν ένα πραγματικό δράμα, θα αναζητήσουν στη φαντασία κάποια ανακούφιση και παρηγοριά από τις πικρίες και θα συγγράψουν χρονογραφήματα, χαρούμενους στίχους, ευχάριστα και χαρμόσυνα διηγήματα ή πικάντικα ανέκδοτα. [...]
January 5, 2025
My foray into neuroscience was an accident. The desire to read about Cajal was not. Spending autobiography and translation. Loved the exaggerated use of some words.
Cajal's life should be an inspiration for many who think a lot cannot be accomplished despite a rough start (having parents like his would help for sure, but...). I hope all of his works are translated.
Cajal's life should be an inspiration for many who think a lot cannot be accomplished despite a rough start (having parents like his would help for sure, but...). I hope all of his works are translated.
March 24, 2024
De difícil lectura. En la primera parte mezcla narración un tanto infantil con un léxico culto. En la segunda hay capítulos con descripciones detalladas de experimentos que resultan tediosas, de hecho ya lo avisa el propio autor.
September 3, 2022
An unparalleled autobiography.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews