The Dreams Of Santiago Ram N Y Cajal

The Spanish anatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) explored the microscopic world of the brain and found a landscape inhabited by distinctly individual cells, later termed neurons. "The mysterious butterflies of the soul," he called them, "whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind." Although he ranks among the greatest scientists in history, the name of the Nobel Prize-winning "father of modern neuroscience" is not as well-known as that of Darwin, Pasteur, Galileo, Einstein, Copernicus, and Isaac Newton. The second half of the nineteenth century saw a revolution in the study of the mind. Cajal was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), whose radical theories would scandalize the next century. Before he was a neuroanatomist Cajal conducted psychiatric experiments and before Freud became a psychiatrist, he worked in neuroanatomy. In public, Cajal spoke respectfully about Freud, but in private, Cajal rejected the man and his theories. In order to disprove Freud's "lies," Cajal started to record his own dreams in a diary, part of a notably personal book project, which he worked on from 1918 until his death in 1934. For reasons unknown, Cajal never published this work. Until recently, it was assumed that the manuscript had been destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. The Dreams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal is this lost dream diary, translated into English for the first time. The text is accompanied by an introduction to the life and work of Cajal, his relationship with the famed Viennese psychoanalyst, and the historical context surrounding the contributions of two great dueling intellects.

From the pen of the versatile Spanish Nobel Laureate, Santiago Ram�n y Cajal (1852-1934), the visionary of science, also known as the "Don Quixote of the Microscope," comes this unfinished fantasy dream, written around 1880. The text appears in English for the first time, accompanied by a brief editorial annotation. Inspired by Claude Bernard's discussion of the 'resurrection' of Rotifera and Tardigrada, Cajal dreams of having stayed inside a forgotten coffin as a desiccated spore; he awakens after an earthquake, becomes rehydrated by a rain shower, and meets Doctor Micrococcus, a 61st-century physician, who hosts and guides him. The two enter into a quasi-Socratic dialogue on matters of science, medicine, politics, nutrition, happiness, and education.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) made prolific and lasting contributions to understanding "the life of the infinitely small."

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The works and thoughts of Santiago Ramn y Cajal in a faithful rendition of the original Spanish version, with additional facts contained in the French translation, both of which are currently quoted around 200 times each year in the scientific literature. This is the only authorized English translation and makes use of uniform nomenclature according to contemporary scientific English. Most of the illustrations are reproductions of Cajal's original art work, with cross references to the figure numbers of the Spanish and French versions, while the taxonomic glossary uses current scientific names, and their colloquial English counterparts.