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Pedro Ramón y Cajal (1854 – 1950) was born in Larrés (Huesca), where his father Justo Ramón Casasús worked as a surgeon-barber. He was an Aragonese doctor, scientist and teacher. He is the brother (two years younger) of the Nobel Prize winner, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, with whom he always maintained an excellent relationship. Professor in Cádiz and Zaragoza, Pedro was an academic at the Royal Academy of Medicine of Zaragoza.
He studied high school in Huesca at the same time as his brother Santiago. By then his father, Don Justo Ramón, who had finished his degree in Valencia, was working as a doctor in Ayerbe. During the holiday periods in Ayerbe they spent happy times
“Pedro was a boy as docile and attentive as he was diligent and punctilious. He undoubtedly had artistic inclinations and a passion for warrior games, but these tastes were not powerful to lead him astray from the right path or seriously deter him from studying. My father, who placed great hopes in his formality and obedience feared, without a doubt, the contagion of my rebellion and, acting with prudence, separated the two brothers, installing them separately; Pedro was decently housed in a peaceful guest house; I, as punishment for my distractions, had to settle as a young man in a barber’s shop.
Nothing broke the ties of brotherhood and mutual sympathy between the brothers who shared games, adventures and battles. Pedro was not as holy as he seemed, but he did not reach the levels of his brother Santiagué.
Pedro completed his high school studies at the Institute of Huesca at the age of 17, failing one subject. Not daring to appear before his father with this suspense, he runs away from home.
He leaves Spain and arrives in Bordeaux. There she embarks to South America, on a sailing ship called Queen as a stowaway. The journey lasted three months, much longer than had been estimated, so he began to have a hard time as water and food became scarce. The “American experience” would last 7 years, which were spent in Uruguay and Argentina, experiencing innumerable adventures. ..
At that time, the Triple Alliance war with Paraguay (1865-1870) was taking place. In 1868, General Lorenzo Batlle became president of Uruguay, who was deeply concerned about the economic crisis. The problem is important, because in 1869 several Uruguayan banks were closed, there was suppression of payments and popular demonstrations.
In 1870 the revolution of Colonel Timoteo Aparicio would last about two years. It ended with the peace of April 1872. This was a transitional peace between both sides.
In this political framework, Pedro Ramón y Cajal arrived in Uruguay and joined the revolutionary ranks. Pedro acts as a soldier in civil struggles. One day he finds himself the secretary of a brave native leader, Timoteo Aparicio. Such a position was achieved given that Pedro knew how to read and write, details that his boss did not master.
After 7 years of adventures, Pedro and his Italian partner decide to run away. They can’t think of anything else but to do it by taking Colonel Timoteo Aparicio’s horse and gun. They are arrested and tried and sentenced to death. Fortunately, the family of his Italian companion, aware of his son’s plight, was able to intercede for him, shortly before the execution, through the Italian consulate.
The Spanish consulate was alerted by the Italian consul that there was also a Spaniard in danger of being shot, and they interceded for him and managed to save himself from certain death. Thus, through consular intervention, he is removed from the country and can return to Spain.
Back home, another shock awaited Pedro. At the gates of Zaragoza, at the so-called Química stop, now gone, the train stopped for a few minutes and Pedro suggested to his fellow passengers that they should go ashore and say a prayer to the Virgin, in sight of the Pilar towers.
He considered Pilarica his benefactor in the adventures he had experienced in South America and from which he had managed to escape to tell the tale. Little did she suspect that this gesture was going to save her life again. A derailment or explosion, it is not clear what happened, killed his traveling companions while he was praying on the ground.
Years later, Santiago Ramón y Cajal himself described his brother’s return:
“The prodigal son returned home eight or ten years later, and, repenting of his behavior, he took up work and honorably completed his medical studies. Now a renowned clinician, he is among the professors at the Faculty of Medicine of Zaragoza. In due time we will mention his interesting and fruitful research on the Comparative Histology of the nervous system.”
He refers, as he himself explains in another chapter of Memories of my life. “to eight extensive monographs, on various topics of comparative neurology in fish, reptiles, birds and batracians”, where Pedro confirms many of the findings carried out by his brother Santiago in mammals so that they could be generalized.
Years later, Pedro, a close collaborator in the shadow of the Nobel Prize, would write: “One of my greatest satisfactions was being the only friend and confidant of my brother Santiago.”
Pedro returned to Spain in 1878 at the age of 24 and began studying Medicine at the University of Zaragoza. In 1879 he managed to be named a boarding student of Anatomy by competitive examination. His bachelor’s degree, with an outstanding degree, dates back to October 1881.
The next seven years were spent by Pedro practicing rural medicine in the Zaragoza towns of La Almolda (1881-1885) and Fuendejalón (1885-1888). Later he returned to Zaragoza and on February 11, 1888 he married María Vinós Redondo, in the Church of San Pablo.
His first histological works date back to this same year, as he is fond of this discipline and takes advantage of his free time to examine the nervous system of every small animal that falls into his hands. Over time he will specialize in lower vertebrates (birds, fish, batrachians and reptiles) and, advised by his brother Santiago, will help him in his research.
Meanwhile, he opened a consultation at his own home on Blanca Street, nº 4. On February 3, 1890, Pedro was appointed, by virtue of competitive examination, Director of anatomical work at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zaragoza, exercising this position for 3 years and 10 months.
He reached his highest academic degree, the Doctorate, on November 24, 1890 with a thesis titled Research into comparative histology of vision in various vertebrates.
This work describes the fundamental cell types of the vision centers of different vertebrate species. In his own words: “The result of my observations was the demonstration that all the optical centers of all vertebrates contained the same structural factors and that, consequently, the marvelous instrument of vision always responded to the same structural formula.” “.
In January 1895 he obtained, by competitive examination, the Chair of Normal Histology and Histochemistry and Pathological Anatomy of Cádiz, from where he carried out great teaching and research work that lasted until 1899.
Numerous histological works came from his pen in these years, among them, a monograph on the chameleon brain, published in 1896, which brought him international fame.
Using the Golgi-Cajal method (as he called it, given the modifications introduced by his brother) he studies the brain of reptiles, making a detailed description of the cerebral cortex, olfactory bulbs and optical centers of the lizard (Lacerta agilis).
Of particular relevance are his works on the optical centers of birds and optical lobes of teleost fish. In fact, it was in the optic tectum of birds where he saw the terminal plexuses that his brother could not find and that prompted him to strengthen his law of neuronal polarization.
When Santiago discovers the reduced silver nitrate method, Pedro is the first to use it in lower vertebrates, discovering the nucleus of the masticatory nerve in birds, reptiles and batracians.
In 1902 he received the Martínez y Molina Prize, shared with his brother Santiago, for extensive histological work: On the sensory brain centers in man and animals.
Pedro was always, even from a distance, very close to his brother and the scientific collaboration he maintained with him basically consisted of corroborating all his findings in lower mammals.
At the teaching level, his teachings were described as masterful by those who did not hesitate to call his time at the Faculty of Medicine of Cádiz “Cajal’s era.” Pedro held this Chair for 4 years and 10 months since in November 1899 he won the Clinical Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Zaragoza through a merit contest.
The price for returning to Zaragoza will be, as we see, the change of occupation. Pedro will leave teaching Anatomy and Histology for Gynecology and Obstetrics. Without ceasing to attend to his Chair, Pedro resumes the consultation he left behind when he moved to Cádiz.
This consultation is quite successful, which makes it consider expanding it, in order to be able to serve its entire clientele. He then joined forces with Dr. Ricardo Lozano Monzón, a prestigious thoracic surgeon, and they opened what would be the first private surgical and obstetric clinic in Zaragoza, on Paseo María Agustín, in front of Puerta del Carmen.
He completed his new clinic with a General Analysis and Pathological Anatomy laboratory. It should be noted that Pedro was a pioneer in the use of radium to treat cancer in his new clinic in Zaragoza. This radioactive material, purchased in 1917, was the first to arrive in Aragon.
Radium was used to treat cancer of the vulva, cervix and endometrium. His clinical procedure consisted of irradiating the tumor in order to stop its growth and reduce its mass, then surgically remove it and subsequently analyze it using the expertise acquired in his histological work.
As we see, the medicine that Pedro performed is what is performed today by a team made up of the family doctor, the gynecologist, the radiologist and the anatomical pathologist.
In 1902 he founded and directed, together with doctors Lozano and Royo Villanova, the magazine “La Clínica Moderna” where, until 1917, he published more than 70 histological and gynecological works.
He made important contributions on the uterine structure, ovarian innervation, follicular epithelium of the ovary, uterine tuberculosis, genesis of ovarian cysts, uterine cancer, etc.
Within the study of female pathologies, he declared:
“The study of cancer has been one of my most notable inclinations. On this subject I have published some articles that are not exempt from originality… I dealt extensively with the pathological anatomy of this process and the changes induced by radium.”
He observed strange fevers with varied symptoms. Interested in this phenomenon, he studies it. And the fruit of his research are his works: Undulating Fevers, Little-known Febrile Processes, and his splendid monograph Mediterranean Fever of Aragon.
In 1914 he entered the Royal Academy of Medicine of Zaragoza and chose this research topic for his entrance speech, which he would give under the title of Maltese Fever in Aragon.
Regarding this topic, Pedro Ramón y Cajal can be attributed to being the first clinical researcher to discover and describe Malta fever in Spain, back in 1896. This name is due to the discoverer of the germ that produces it, English Navy medical colonel David Bruce, who observed this condition for the first time on the Mediterranean island of Malta.
In October 1924, Pedro received his retirement from his University Chair, upon turning 70 years of age. This does not mean the end of his activities, since he continues working in his private clinic until close to his death.
In the tribute paid to him at the age of 96, his son Pedro Ramón y Cajal read this message:
“My generation of the second half of the 19th century was characterized by its efforts to elevate the human personality, both physical and spiritual. The generation of this half of the 20th century has achieved great scientific advances but there is no visible progress in the moral greatness of the man. In my professional experience I have always preferred contact with the sick. In my time as a rural doctor I was able to declare that fidelity, gratitude and generosity are rare flowers in cities but they sprout with great vigor and abundance in modest peasant homes “.
Pedro was above all a clinical doctor. In this he differed from his brother Santiago, and was more like his father, and for 55 years Pedro was seeing the sick, until his health allowed it, which was shortly before his death at the age of 96. .
On December 10, 1950, Pedro Ramón y Cajal died in his home in Zaragoza at 12 Joaquín Costa Street.
According to El Noticiero de Zaragoza:
“In the early hours of Sunday morning, the distinguished Dr. Pedro Ramón y Cajal, one of the most outstanding professors as a pedagogue of our Faculty of Medicine, a researcher in love with scientific advancement, a doctor of extraordinary experience, a skillful and a very expert surgeon and above all an exceptional gentleman for his kindness, his sympathy and the greatness of his soul…”.
