Santiago Ramòn y Cajal: The Artist of the Brain

If anyone ever claimed that art and science cannot synergistically coexist together, they probably would not have heard of Santiago Ramòn y Cajal.

Cajal's story is the perfect example of how your innate creative instincts can manifest themselves in a rather academically intensive environment, and yield groundbreaking discoveries.

Cajal was born in the village of Petilla in Northeastern Spain to a renowned surgeon. Unconventional from the get go, Cajal was interested in art and gymnastics. Much to the dismay of his father, Cajal kept changing schools due to his disregard for the rigid educational structure being followed in those times. Such was his craze for art, that he used to visit graveyards with his father and sketch the bones of the human remains. This is what inspired him to take up medical sciences as a career.

However, soon after graduating, he was dispatched as a medical officer in the Spanish army.On his return, Cajal, ever so motivated, bought a microscope and thus initiated his scientific adventures. After working on the pathology of inflammation, the microbiology of cholera, and the structure of epithelial cells, Cajal moved to Barcelona where he was first introduced to the method of Golgi staining. Mightily impressed by the aesthetic nature of brain sections, Cajal focussed all his attention on the central nervous system, and began to create magnificent pieces of art. His drawings were so well elucidated and precise that on their own accord they were able to prove that the nervous system is not a network of continuous elements, but a very intricately arranged system of discrete units called neurons.

Cajal was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1906 for his "Neuron Doctrine" and became the founding father of modern neuroanatomy as we know it today.