Camillo Golgi on the Structure of the Hippocampus

Golgi's only paper on the pes Hippocampi major was published in 1883 and then reprinted and translated a number of times. In it he stated that the fascia dentata provided the best information available to date on how nerve fibers and nerve cells are related. Based on the revolutionary silver chromate method he had introduced a decade earlier, Golgi described two sources of axons from the fascia dentata: one consisted of direct axons from the granule cells, and the other consisted of indirect axons from a diffuse neural net or reticulum that was generated from collaterals of the direct axons. The same basic arrangement was described for Ammon's horn, but neither was illustrated, and it is important to bear in mind that this work was published before the ‘neuron doctrine’ and ‘law of functional polarity’ were elaborated in the 1890s.     

Camillo Golgi on the structure of the hippocampus

Golgi's only paper on the pes Hippocampi major was published in 1883 and then reprinted and translated a number of times. In it he stated that the fascia dentata provided the best information available to date on how nerve fibers and nerve cells are related. Based on the revolutionary silver chromate method he had introduced a decade earlier, Golgi described two sources of axons from the fascia dentata: one consisted of direct axons from the granule cells, and the other coonsisted of indirect axons from a diffuse neural net or reticulum that was generated from collaterals of the direct axons. The same basic arrangement was described for Ammon's horn, but neither was illustrated, and it is important to bear in mind that this work was published before the "neuron doctrine" and "law of functional polarity" were elaborated in the 1890's.     

The Legacy of Camillo Golgi for Modern Concepts of Brain Organization

The experimental advance made by Camillo Golgi's ‘black reaction’ has been universally recognized as the start of the modern revolution in the study of the nervous system. By contrast, his concepts of nervous organization, particularly his support for the idea of a ‘nervous reticulum’, have been universally rejected. The premise of the present paper is that the ideas of a biologist of this stature deserve re-examination. Golgi's arguments for considering the holistic function of the brain seem to come from his experience as a physician, and presage the views of the gestaltists and, more recently, the conceptual underpinnings of artificial neural networks. His interest in the possible nutritional roles of neuronal dendrites can be seen to anticipate current investigations, at the cellular level, of the metabolic basis of brain imaging. These and other currents in Golgi's thought deserve further study.     

The legacy of Camillo Golgi for modern concepts of brain organization

The experimental advance made by Camillo Golgi's 'black reaction' has been universally recognized as the start of the modern revolution in the study of the nervous system. By contrast, his concepts of nervous organization, particularly his support for the idea of a 'nervous reticulum', have been universally rejected. The premise of the present paper is that ideas of a biologist of this stature deserve re-examination. Golgi's arguments for considering the holistic function of the brain seem to come from his experience as a physician, and presage the views of the gestaltists and, more recently, the conceptual underpinnings of artificial neural networks. His interest in the possible nutritional roles of neuronal dendrites can be seen to anticipate current investigations, at the cellular level, of the metabolic basis of brain imaging. These and other currents in Golgi's thought deserve further study.     

Camillo Golgi's scientific biography

Born in Corteno, a tiny village in the province of Brescia, Camillo Golgi studied at the University of Pavia where he graduated in medicine in 1865 under the guidance of the psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso who sparked his vocation to study the brain. Golgi then began to learn histological techniques under the direction of the pathologist Giulio Bizzozero. In 1872 he moved to Abbiategrasso as chief of a hospital for chronic diseases. In a rudimentary laboratory he developed the silver-bichromate staining technique, the 'black reaction', which was a breakthrough for nervous tissue structure research. While in Abbiategrasso Golgi demonstrated the branching of the axons, and observed striatal and cortical lesions in a case of chorea. He returned to Pavia as Professor of Histology and General Pathology, and made a series of important discoveries that still bear his name: the Golgi tendon organ, the Golgi-Mazzoni corpuscles, another Golgi method to stain nerve cells based on the use of potassium dichromate and mercuric chloride, the canaliculi of the parietal cells of the gastric glands (Muller-Golgi tubules), the Golgi-Rezzonico myelin's annular apparatus (or Golgi-Rezzonico horny funnels), the cycle of malarian parasites (Golgi cycle), the relationship between recurrent malarian fever bouts and the multiplication of the Plasmodium in the blood (Golgi law), the relationship between the vascular pole of the Malpighian glomerulus and the distal tubule, the Golgi's pericellular nets and finally, and most importantly, the cytoplasmic 'internal reticular apparatus' (Golgi apparatus). In 1906 Golgi was awarded the Nobel prize for Medicine or Physiology. He died in Pavia on 21 January 1921.     

Microscopy in Camillo Golgi's times

The research by Camillo Golgi in histology and pathology dates from 1865, the year in which he obtained his MD degree, to 1923, when his last scientific article was published. Beginning in the mid 1855s, microscope manufacturers in Europe started producing objectives based on the principle of immersion introduced in 1847 by Giovan Battista Amici. The immersion objectives greatly improved the resolution of microscopic observations at high magnifications. From 1860 to 1872, technological improvements in microscope optics and the practicality of their use provided a larger community of investigators effective tools needed to study the structure of the nervous system. This progress in microscopy was associated with the application of new histological techniques, mastered by the chromoargentic reaction introduced by Golgi in 1873. In 1872, further progress in microscopy stemmed from the application of notions of applied physics to the production of microscope optics. These developments in microscopy will be briefly reviewed here.     

Gustaf Dalman, Anti-Semitism, and the Language of Jesus Debate

The theory that Jesus of Nazareth spoke and taught exclusively in Aramaic rather than Hebrew achieved its present dominant position just over a century ago due largely to the labour of Gustaf Dalman. His primary motivation was not the recovery of the historical Jesus, however, but to support his deep commitment to the Protestant movement to convert Jews. This movement did not escape the impact of escalating anti-Semitism in society, intensified by rapid progress towards German national unification. One Christian response to anti-Semitism was to "extract" Jesus from Judaism by contrasting him with "Jewish" attitudes and values held by Jewish spiritual authorities. Dalman's contribution was to extract Jesus from the ethnically exclusive Hebrew language by insisting that he spoke only the more widely used lingua franca of the region, Aramaic. By overstating his case and going beyond the evidence, Dalman revealed his indebtedness to the anti-Semitic spirit of his age.     

Magnus Gustaf Blix (1849-1904); Neurophysiological,Physiological, and Engineering Virtuoso

This paper was written to honour the 150th anniversary of the birth of Magnus Gustaf Blix. Blix belongs to the small group of 19th century physiologic neuroscientists who still regularly are cited, on account of having presented fundamental results. He contributed to three fields: somatic sensation, and visual and muscular function. He was the first to publish evidence regarding modality specific receptors in the skin. He extended the work of Hermann von Helmholtz on the optical properties of the anterior ocular chamber of living humans, after having constructed the necessary apparatus. He also measured the heat production of contracting muscles. For this purpose he constructed the apparatus that provided a start for A. V. Hill’s Nobel Prize-winning work in the field. He showed for the first time that the power of muscle contractions depended on the length/extension of the muscle fibres. He worked on the possibility of muscle powered human aviation. For this purpose he constructed a bicycle dynamometer for measuring the maximal human power output. He was the vice-chancellor of Lund university when he died from an acute disease in 1904 at the age of only 55 years.     

Magnus Gustaf Blix (1849-1904); neurophysiological, physiological, and engineering virtuoso

This paper was written to honour the 150th anniversary of the birth of Magnus Gustaf Blix. Blix belongs to the small group of 19th century physiologic neuroscientists who still regularly are cited, on account of having presented fundamental results. He contributed to three fields: somatic sensation, and visual and muscular function. He was the first to publish evidence regarding modality specific receptors in the skin. He extended the work of Hermann von Helmholtz on the optical properties of the anterior ocular chamber of living humans, after having constructed the necessary apparatus. He also measured the heat production of contracting muscles. For this purpose he constructed the apparatus that provided a start for A. V. Hill's Nobel Prize-winning work in the field. He showed for the first time that the power of muscle contractions depended on the length/extension of the muscle fibres. He worked on the possibility of muscle powered human aviation. For this purpose he constructed a bicycle dynamometer for measuring the maximal human power output. He was the vice-chancellor of Lund university when he died from an acute disease in 1904 at the age of only 55 years.     

The discovery of the Golgi apparatus

The existence of the cell organelle which is now known as Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex, or simply as 'the Golgi", was first reported by Camillo Golgi in 1898, when he described in nerve cells an 'internal reticular apparatus' impregnated by a variant of his chromoargentic staining. It soon became clear that the newly-identified cytoplasmic structure occurred in a variety of cell types. However, the reality of the organelle was questioned for decades, until it was finally ascertained with electron microscopy. The Golgi apparatus was destined to become a protagonist of the research in cytology and cell biology pursued in the second half of the twentieth century.     

The Golgi Stain: invention, diffusion and impact on neurosciences

The black reaction, invented in 1873 by Camillo Golgi (1843-1926, was the first technique to reveal neurons in their entirety, i.e. with all their processes. This important development passed unnoticed at first and only received wide international attention after a long delay. The Golgi stain was widely employed for almost thirty years and was directly responsible for major advances in our knowledge of the microscopic anatomy of the nervous system, as well as in other fields of study. In the hands of other researchers, the black reaction provided vital evidence that helped to establish the neuron theory. The Golgi stain was almost forgotten in the period between the two World Wars, but the introduction of the electron microscope to neurocytological resarch revived its use around the middle of the twentieth century. Today, the black reaction is still used extensively not only in combination with electron microscopy, but also as an autonomous technique in studies on the evolution, ontogeny, and organization of the nervous system.     

Revisiting the 1981 Nobel Prize to Roger Sperry, David Hubel, and Torsten Wiesel on the occasion of the centennial of the Prize to Golgi and Cajal

In 1981 the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology was awarded to Roger Sperry for his work on the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres, and to David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel for their work on information processing in the visual system. The present paper points to some important links between the work of Sperry and that of Hubel and Wiesel and to their influences on neuroscience in the best tradition going back to Cajal.     

Some Aspects of the History of the Law of Dynamic Polarization of the Neuron. From William James to Sherrington,from Cajal and Van Gehuchten to Golgi

William James was the first to suggest that propagation of impulses in the nervous system proceeds in one direction, from sensory to motor neurons, but not viceversa. His law of forward direction preceded the formulation of the law of dynamic polarization of van Gehuchten and Cajal, which assumed that nerve impulses are conducted cellulipetally along dendrites and cellulifugally along axons, based on different anatomo-functional properties of these neuronal components. Golgi did not accept the law of dynamic polarization because he believed that dendrites are involved in the nutrition of the neuron rather than in impulse propagation, and that impulses can travel in any direction in the axonal components of the diffuse nerve network. Sherrington in turn experimentally demonstrated that intraneuronic conduction is reversible, whereas, in accord with James's law, propagation of impulses along neuronal chains is irreversible, due to the valve-like action of synapses. The story of the law of dynamic polarization shows that neither Golgi nor Cajal paid much heed to Sherrington's findings and to neurophysiological studies in general, probably because they felt that histology alone could provide the key for understanding the general functioning of the nervous system. It is argued here that this attitude was detrimental to the progress of the neurosciences, because a multidisciplinary approach based on different techniques is inevitably called for in order to develop a plausible theory of the nervous system.     

Some aspects of the history of the law of dynamic polarization of the neuron. From William James to Sherrington, from Cajal and van Gehuchten to Golgi

William James was the first to suggest that propagation of impulses in the nervous system proceeds in one direction, from sensory to motor neurons, but not viceversa. His law of forward direction preceded the formulation of the law of dynamic polarization of van Gehuchten and Cajal, which assumed that nerve impulses are conducted cellulipetally along dendrites and cellulifugally along axons, based on different anatomo-functional properties of these neuronal components. Golgi did not accept the law of dynamic polarization because he believed that dendrites are involved in the nutrition of the neuron rather than in impulse propagation, and that impulses can travel in any direction in the axonal components of the diffuse nerve network. Sherrington in turn experimentally demonstrated that intraneuronic conduction is reversible, whereas, in accord with James's law, propagation of impulses along neuronal chains is irreversible, due to the valve-like action of synapses. The story of the law of dynamic polarization shows that neither Golgi nor Cajal paid much heed to Sherrington's findings and to neurophysiological studies in general, probably because they felt that histology alone could provide the key for understanding the general functioning of the nervous system. It is argued here that this attitude was detrimental to the progress of the neurosciences, because a multidisciplinary approach based on different techniques is inevitably called for in order to develop a plausible theory of the nervous system.