Camillo GOLGI 1843 – 1926

He was an Italian physician and a scholar of neuroanatomy. He is known for his work on the nervous system by his own tissue staining method. He was born in Brescia. He studied medicine at the University of Pavia. After graduation, he began to specialize in psychiatry, but his research in experimental pathology led him to histology. He continued his research on the nervous system. In 1875, he was appointed lecturer at the University of Siena. In 1876, he became a professor of histology at the University of Pavia and after 1881, he became professor of pathology. In 1906, he shared the Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine with Ramon y Cajal for his work on the nervous system. Golgi, described structures such as dendrites, axons, which provide the relationship between cells and nerve conduction in the nervous system, had the opportunity to examine various parts of the structure of a nerve cell separately or completely with the changes he made in staining techniques. He found the structure called the “Golgi tendon organ”, which contains the sensory nerves in the beams (tendons) connecting the muscles to the bones and other organs, and the touch bodies in the skin. Later, he identified the Golgi device, which is found to be present in all cells except bacteria, and which is still the subject of research for the first time and to define its role in cell metabolism. Beginning in the late 19th century, his work on histology has laid the foundation for research into the structure and functioning of neural cells in neuroanatomy and neurology.