LAUSR

age conjured by the vision of a surrealist painter in the 1920s or an intricate detail lifted from a textile designed by British artist William Morris in the 1870s. It borrows facets from both but is neither. Rather, this striking image is one among the thousands of scientific images created by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, one of the most influential neuroscientists of all time. Cajal was born in Petilla de Aragón, a small village in northeastern Spain. He is well known for many key contributions to our knowledge of the structure of the nervous system and especially of the brain and spinal cord. Cajal’s career as a researcher, teacher, and mentor spanned more than 50 years, and he published numerous groundbreaking books and more than 100 articles in French and Spanish scientific periodicals. He was