Golgi

Book excerpt: The life of Camillo Golgi was an extraordinary intellectual adventure in three major fields of biology and medicine, namely neuroscience, emerging cell biology, and the new science of medical microbiology. in 1873, Golgi published the description of a revolutionary histological technique which allowed one, for the first time, to visualize a single nerve cell with all its ramifications, and which could be followed and analyzed even at a great distance from the cell bodies. The so-called "black reaction" (later named the "Golgi method") provided the spark to a truly scientific revolution which allowed the morphology and the basic architecture of the cerebral tissue to be evidenced in all its complexity, thus contributing to the foundation of modern neuroscience. It has been written that, in the same way Galileo Galilei was able to find new stars observing any sky region with his telescope. Golgi was able to find new nervous structures and nerve cells by applying his black reaction to any brain region. Finally, the details of the most complex structure in the known universe, the brain, could be characterized. Golgi's black reaction is just one of his many successes and contributions to society. As this book illustrates, he has also strongly contributed to the development of cell biology with the "internal reticular apparatus" (later called the "Golgi apparatus") and to medical microbiology with his studies on malaria. Engrossing and authoritative, Golgi: A Biography of the Founder of Modern Neuroscience, is a detailed account of one of the most prominent European researchers of his time.