Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Brain

Beautiful Brain: The Stunning Drawings of Neuroscience Founding Father Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Oliver Sacks insisted that “ideas emerge, are shaped, in the act of writing,” which he considered “a special, indispensable form” of talking to himself. Unusual creature though he was, the beloved neurologist was not the only scientist who turned to other forms of creative expression as a clarifying force for scientific inquiry. The Spanish histologist, onetime bodybuilder, selfie pioneer, and Nobel laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal (May 1, 1852–October 17, 1934), widely considered the founding father of modern neuroscience, used drawing the way Dr. Sacks used writing — as a vital way of thinking out loud, of giving form to ideas, of making arguments and fleshing out theories around the skeleton of observations.