The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron

The Nobel Prize–winning scientist who transformed our understanding of the human mind—now the first major biography of this singular figure.

Unless you're a neuroscientist, Santiago Ramón y Cajal is likely the most important figure in the history of biology you've never heard of. Along with Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur, he ranks among the most brilliant and original biologists of the nineteenth century. His lifelong investigation of neurons—"the mysterious butterflies of the soul," Cajal called them—earned him the Nobel Prize in 1906 and produced a dazzling oeuvre of anatomical drawings that grace the pages of medical textbooks to this day.

Benjamin Ehrlich's The Brain in Search of Itself is the first major English biography of this singular figure, whose scientific odyssey mirrored the rocky journey of his beloved homeland of Spain into the twentieth century. Born into relative poverty, Cajal became an illustrious figure who transformed the underdeveloped science of his time. He argued that the nervous system is comprised of individual cells with distinctive roles, just like any other organ in the body, prevailing in one of the greatest scientific rivalries in history.

In our age of neuro-imaging and investigations into the neural basis of the mind, Cajal is the artistic and scientific forefather we must get to know. The Brain in Search of Itself is the story of how the brain as we know it came into being and a finely wrought portrait of a fantastical and complex man who devoted his life to science.

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The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron

The Nobel Prize–winning scientist who transformed our understanding of the human mind—now the first major biography of this singular figure.

Unless you're a neuroscientist, Santiago Ramón y Cajal is likely the most important figure in the history of biology you've never heard of. Along with Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur, he ranks among the most brilliant and original biologists of the nineteenth century. His lifelong investigation of neurons—"the mysterious butterflies of the soul," Cajal called them—earned him the Nobel Prize in 1906 and produced a dazzling oeuvre of anatomical drawings that grace the pages of medical textbooks to this day.

Benjamin Ehrlich's The Brain in Search of Itself is the first major English biography of this singular figure, whose scientific odyssey mirrored the rocky journey of his beloved homeland of Spain into the twentieth century. Born into relative poverty, Cajal became an illustrious figure who transformed the underdeveloped science of his time. He argued that the nervous system is comprised of individual cells with distinctive roles, just like any other organ in the body, prevailing in one of the greatest scientific rivalries in history.

In our age of neuro-imaging and investigations into the neural basis of the mind, Cajal is the artistic and scientific forefather we must get to know. The Brain in Search of Itself is the story of how the brain as we know it came into being and a finely wrought portrait of a fantastical and complex man who devoted his life to science.

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The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron

The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron

by Benjamin Ehrlich
The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron

The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron

by Benjamin Ehrlich

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Overview

The Nobel Prize–winning scientist who transformed our understanding of the human mind—now the first major biography of this singular figure.

Unless you're a neuroscientist, Santiago Ramón y Cajal is likely the most important figure in the history of biology you've never heard of. Along with Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur, he ranks among the most brilliant and original biologists of the nineteenth century. His lifelong investigation of neurons—"the mysterious butterflies of the soul," Cajal called them—earned him the Nobel Prize in 1906 and produced a dazzling oeuvre of anatomical drawings that grace the pages of medical textbooks to this day.

Benjamin Ehrlich's The Brain in Search of Itself is the first major English biography of this singular figure, whose scientific odyssey mirrored the rocky journey of his beloved homeland of Spain into the twentieth century. Born into relative poverty, Cajal became an illustrious figure who transformed the underdeveloped science of his time. He argued that the nervous system is comprised of individual cells with distinctive roles, just like any other organ in the body, prevailing in one of the greatest scientific rivalries in history.

In our age of neuro-imaging and investigations into the neural basis of the mind, Cajal is the artistic and scientific forefather we must get to know. The Brain in Search of Itself is the story of how the brain as we know it came into being and a finely wrought portrait of a fantastical and complex man who devoted his life to science.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780374718770
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date: 03/15/2022
Sold by: Macmillan
Format: eBook
Pages: 464
File size: 21 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Benjamin Ehrlich is the author of The Dreams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the first translation of Cajal’s dream journals into English. His work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Paris Review Daily, Nautilus, and New England Review, where he serves as a senior reader.

Table of Contents

Prologue: "A Vehement Desire of My Soul" 3

1 "The Necessary Antecedent" 9

2 "Perpetual Miracle" 16

3 "Plunging into Social Life" 24

4 "A Castle of Dreams" 29

5 "The War of Duty and Desire" 35

6 "The Nasty and Prosaic Bag" 45

7 "A Myth Concealed in Ignorance" 54

8 "Humbled by My Failure" 66

9 "Cells and More Cells" 75

10 "The Irremediable Uselessness of My Existence" 85

11 "Not for the Living but for the Dead" 92

12 "The Role of Don Quixote" 106

13 "The Religion of the Cell" 117

14 "Moved by Faith" 127

15 "Free Endings" 135

16 "Doubting Certain Facts" 154

17 "The Only Opinions That Matter to Me" 166

18 "The Absolute Unsearchability of the Soul" 174

19 "Grand Passion in Service" 188

20 "From Catastrophe to Catastrophe" 197

21 "The Mysterious Butterflies" 207

22 "The Summit of My Inquisitive Activity" 216

23 "The Most Highly Organized Structure" 226

24 "A Cruel Irony of Fate" 235

25 "To Defend the Truth" 252

26 "The Unfathomable Mystery of Life" 265

27 "I Drown and I Awaken" 272

28 "Those Poisoned Wounds" 280

29 "No Solemn Gatherings" 287

30 "Marvelous Old Man" 297

31 "Statues of the Living" 302

32 "The Self Has No Mirror" 310

33 "Searching for Themselves in the Secret" 315

34 "My Strength Is Exhausted" 325

Epilogue 331

Notes 345

Bibliography 387

Acknowledgments 427

Index 431

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