The Santiago Ramón y Cajal Award

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

1852-1934

The Santiago Ramón y Cajal award is given to an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to neuroscience with an application to neuropsychiatry.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal was born in Petilla de Aragón, Spain on May 1, 1852. As a boy he had wished to be an artist but his father, a Professor of Applied Anatomy, convinced him to study medicine. After taking his Licentiate in Medicine in 1873 he served as an army doctor. Over the next 10 years he received his Doctor of Medicine at Madrid and held several appointments in Anatomy until he was appointed Professor of Histology and Pathological Anatomy at Barcelona in 1887 and the same Chair at Madrid in 1892. He published several important works starting in 1880 including the Manual of Normal Histology and Micrographic Technique, Manual of General Pathological Anatomy, Textbook on the Nervous System of Man and the Vertebrates, and The Retina of Vertebrates. He published over 100 articles in French and Spanish scientific journals, mainly on the histological structures of the nervous system. Ramón y Cajal won several distinctions including membership in the Royal Academy of Sciences of Madrid, Royal Academy of Medicine of Madrid, the Spanish Society of Natural History, the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon and Honorary Member of the Spanish Medical and Surgical Academy.

In March 1904 he was summoned to London to give the Croonian Lecture of the Royal Society and to the Clark University (1899) to give lectures on the human brain. A volume of 651 pages was published “In honour of S. Ramón y Cajal on the centenary of his birth 1852 by members of a research group in neurophysiology.” Ramón y Cajal received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 along with Camillo Golgi “in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system.” His Nobel Lecture can be found at:

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1906/cajal/lecture/.

PREVIOUS AWARD WINNERS AND THEIR LECTURE TOPICS