The Nobel Prize of 1906

December 2006 marked 100 years since the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to 2 pioneers in the cellular anatomy of the central nervous system (CNS), Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Golgi developed the silver impregnation method for studying nerve cells, a technique that clearly showed entire cells with their arborizing dendrites and axons for the first time. Ramon y Cajal seized on the method for a series of groundbreaking studies that provided convincing support for what came to be known as the neuron theory, in opposition to the reigning model of the time, the reticular theory. The retina was one of Ramon y Cajal's favorite tissues for study. Although he was perplexed by the horizontal and amacrine cells, he was remarkably prescient in his analysis of retinal and CNS cellular anatomy. Few scientists have cast such a long shadow in their field, but Ramon y Cajal did not establish the neuron theory single-handedly, and the real tale is much more complicated.