(Navarra, 1852 – Madrid, 1934)
Spanish scientist, doctor, histologist and professor. Founder of the Spanish Neurohistological School. Son of a rural doctor, Cajal studied Medicine at the University of Zaragoza, finishing his degree studies in 1873, at the age of 21. At the beginning of his professional career, he was a military doctor and was deployed in the Cuban War, where he contracted malaria.
Returning to the Peninsula and recovering his health, he completed his doctorate at the Central University of Madrid, finishing it in 1877 with the doctoral thesis titled “Pathogenesis of inflammation.” In the following years he worked as a doctor while successively holding professorships at the universities of Valencia and Barcelona.
Between 1884 and 1888 his "Manual of Histology" was published in fascicles. Cajal was a disciple of doctors Aureliano Maestre de San Juan and especially of Luis Simarro, his second and main teacher. In 1892 he moved to Madrid after obtaining the chair of Histology and Normal Histochemistry and Pathological Anatomy at the Central University of Madrid, which he would hold until his retirement in 1922.
In 1901 the government created a modern Biological Research Laboratory, which Cajal went on to direct. Among the numerous international recognitions he received, the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine that was awarded to him, together with Camilo Golgi, in 1906 stands out.
Cajal founded an important Spanish Neurohistological School, which carried out highly relevant work. His main direct disciples were Jorge Francisco Tello, Domingo Sánchez Sánchez, Fernando de Castro and Rafael Lorente de No. He also influenced Nicolás Achúcarro and Pío del Río-Hortega.
He also held other prominent public positions, such as Director of the Alfonso XIII National Institute of Hygiene or President of the Board of Expansion of Studies (JAE). In 1920 the Cajal Institute was created, of which he was its first Director.
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