The childhood of our protagonist takes place in different places because of his father’s postings as a rural doctor. Justo Ramón was working in Petilla de Aragón, a Navarrese enclave in the north of the province of Saragossa, when Santiago was born. But both the family and the childhood experiences of the future doctor are clearly Aragonese, with a strong presence of the lands of the Pre-Pyrenees.

Locate these places on a map of Aragon: Larrés – Luna – Valpalmas – Ayerbe – Jaca.

Which regions do they belong to?

Larrés (Alto Gállego) – Luna (Cinco Villas) – Valpalmas (Cinco Villas) – Ayerbe (Hoya de Huesca) – Jaca (Jacetania)

Two recommendations to learn more about the early years of Santiago Ramón y Cajal:

• Santiago Ramón y Cajal (2006): Recuerdos de mi vida (Edited by Juan Fernández Santarén). Barcelona: Crítica.
• José Luis Cano (2007): Cuando yo era un niño. La infancia de Ramón y Cajal contada por él mismo (Introduction, edition and notes by José Luis Nieto Amada). Saragossa: University Presses of Saragossa. Larumbe Chicos Collection.

Two recommendations to get to know Ramón y Cajal “in his own sauce”:

 

Ramón y Cajal has gone down in the universal history of science for his studies on the functioning of the nervous system and for his observations on the degeneration and regeneration, development and plasticity of this system. His theories are still today a reference in the research of neuroscientists on the complex inner world that each of us harbours inside our bodies (a world with much to explore and discover).

For Cajal, intellectual activity does not depend so much on the number of neurons as on the number of connections established between them: more important than quantity is the relationship, the dynamism between these microscopic elements. The importance of “innate capacities” is not so important, since these capacities can be exercised: with will and study, we can all shape our brains.

Since he was young, he himself had been concerned about his physical form (among other reasons to defend himself from some “bad guys” he met when he arrived at high school in Huesca) and he knew how important physical exercise is… and mental exercise. Hence, in addition to the body, he also cultivated hobbies that exercise and challenge the mind: his passion for chess, his incursions into the field of hypnotism, his interest in literature and philosophy, his eagerness to experiment and innovate photographic techniques?

Look up the meaning of the Latin expression “mens sana in corpore sano”. How does it relate to what you have just read?

Ramón y Cajal once said: “I am a microscope worker”. How do you interpret that, what terms would you relate it to?

For example: work, patience, humility, tenacity?

In your entrance speech to the Royal Academy of Sciences, you took the opportunity to explain how young people should be trained to become good scientists: with tenacity, patience, independence of judgement and intellectual curiosity. And also… with scholarships to study abroad. This brings us to another issue.

 

The phrase that opens this statement is an expression by Miguel de Unamuno taken out of context and which has been stretched like a cliché about conformism and the scant entrepreneurial and research spirit in Spain throughout its history. Today, this is an old-fashioned phrase, but it must be recognised that investment in education and research, which is a sure asset with which it is easier to face the future… is still insufficient. The crises of the last fifteen years have slowed down a trend which, at the turn of the century, was on the rise. Today we are trying to overcome this situation, but it is not easy…

Look up the definition of “brain drain”. Search the internet for news in the press about this phenomenon in relation to Spain and, if possible, Aragon. Look for references about investment in research in Spain: where does it stand in Europe, how has it evolved? Look for any news regarding the situation of grant holders, those contracted in universities and research centres, the precariousness of their employment, comparison with other places abroad…

Science in Spain, science in Aragon… is not going through the best of times, it is true, although there have been much worse times and some progress has been made. Progress owes much to the efforts of the scientific people of the past. People whose main exponent is Santiago Ramón y Cajal.

In 1900, Spain had more than 60 percent illiterate people. The university, limited to a few, had a stale smell; the academic world was incapable of taking on board the scientific and technological revolution that other places were already experiencing. Cajal was a breath of fresh air. Thanks to him, part of the enormous backwardness that had existed for centuries was recovered and, in addition to being in contact with the vanguard of international science, research infrastructure was created. He was at the head of the Junta de Ampliación de Estudios: an ambitious project to regenerate and modernise the education system, with research training stays abroad as a key element.

There have been many others. Not everything is due to Cajal, of course, but his figure goes beyond the exclusively “researcher”, becoming a reference for management and public policy in relation to education and science. In the sense that he aims to help transform inherited inertias… Ramón y Cajal is a regenerationist.

More or less contemporaries of Cajal, between the mid-19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, there were men of science from Aragon (or who developed their careers in Aragon) who made very important contributions to the different branches of scientific knowledge.

Look for information about these people, find out a little about them, and associate them with the discipline in which they excelled:

1. Zoel García de Galdeano                                        a- Botany
2. Julio Palacios                                                             b- Chemistry
3. Francisco Loscos                                                       c- Geology
4. José Pardo Sastrón                                                  d- Physics
5. Lucas Mallada                                                           e- Botany
6. Miguel Catalán                                                          f- Mathematics
7. Bruno Solano                                                              g- Physics           

Solutions: 1-f; 2-d (o g); 3-a (o e); 4-e (o a); 5-c; 6-g (o d); 7-b

Find information about the International Day of Women and Girls in Science: when is it celebrated, what are its objectives?

11 February

Look for information on Blanca Catalán de Ocón, what was her distinguishing feature?

From Calatayud (1860-1904), she is considered the first Spanish botanist.

Look up information about these three women and find out what makes them unique: Antonia Zorraquino, Jenara Vicenta Arnal Yarza and Ángela García de la Puerta.

They were the first three women to obtain a doctorate in Chemical Sciences in Spain, at the University of Saragossa, in 1929.

 

In spite of the obvious the distances, Santiago Ramón y Cajal resembles one of those Renaissance types, like Leonardo, who hit all the right notes. In addition to his contributions to world science, this man from Aragon cultivated and practised athletics and gymnastics, drawing, photography and chess, studied hypnosis and philosophy, cultivated literature and was concerned about the world around him. However absorbing his work may have been, he does not conform to the cliché of the “absent-minded, self-absorbed, out-of-this-world sage”.

It shows how artificial it is to label and speak of “sciences” and “letters” as watertight compartments, how simplistic it is to differentiate between natural and experimental sciences on the one hand, and social sciences and humanities on the other.

In the scholar’s literary work, we can highlight his autobiographical books Recuerdos de mi vida: Mi infancia y mi juventud (1901) and Recuerdos de mi vida: Historia de mi labor científica (1917), which he would later republish. He also published Cuentos de vacaciones (1905), in which he took up writings from his youth, and Charlas de café (1921), as a leisure and escapist activity. He also wrote essays such as La psicología de los artistas (1902), Psicología de Don Quijote y el quijotismo (1905) and La fotografía de los colores. Scientific Bases and Practical Rules (1912).

In his last work, El mundo visto a los ochenta años: impresiones de un arteriosclerótico (1934), Cajal makes an ironic analysis of the world in the last days of his life, and despite his demoralisation with what he sees, he never abandons his hope for man and progress.

 

In his foreword he shows a significant degree of self-criticism and humour:

If the learned public likes these literary trifles, the present series will be followed by another to complete the dozen tales; if, on the other hand, and it is to be presumed, my scientific sermons and outdated lyricism do not find grace in their eyes, the rest of these compositions will sleep the sleep of ill-fated ghouls, which must be much deeper than the so-called sleep of oblivion.

 

The Big Bang Theory is a hit, award-winning American sitcom that ran from 2007 to 2019. It follows the adventures of a group of friends, scientists with above-average intellectual gifts, but absolutely incompetent in personal relationships and without any social skills. The main character is physicist Sheldon Cooper (the epitome of egocentrism), who, in episode 16 of season 6, wants to give a gift to his girlfriend, neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler. An intern who works for him temporarily as an assistant helps him in this endeavour.