Cajal's views on the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine (October 1904)

In this report we present and discuss an unpublished letter written by Santiago Ramon y Cajal in October 1904 in relation to his possible nomination for the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. This letter shows that Cajal was aware of his previous nominations for the Prize. He was convinced that these nominations had not been successful because neither anatomy nor histology were among the sciences included in the Nobel Statutes' definition of Physiology or Medicine. He gives a list of the merits he thought might be used for a new nomination, which included only works concluded during the previous five years.