Related information

1996/05/01 Kaltzada, Pili - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Biografiak

Italian doctor and historian born in the village of Corteno, next to Brescia, in 1844. In his family there was a great fondness for medicine and the young Camillo also took his steps in that direction. In 1865 he received his doctorate from the University of Padua.

He soon began to work and, although he initially dealt with psychiatry, spent the most prosperous years researching tissues and cells. He worked as an assistant at the University of Pavia and between 1872 and 1875 worked at the Abbiategras Hospital. The discovery was fundamental for further research.

Until then Fleming, Koch and Ehrlich used organic substances to dye fabrics. This procedure consisted of revealing invisible elements for the human eye. Golgi used silver salts in the same task and could see previously unknown cellular structures.

Using silver salts, he was able to analyze the textile structure of the nervous system. He discovered different cellular structures and described their operation with great precision. Among other things, he was able to show that in the nervous system there was a basic nervous cell. Since then it is known with the name of Golgi cell the singular structure that binds the rest of nerve cells.

This discovery is the starting point of current neurology. Golgi claimed that what he saw reaffirmed Waldeyer's theory. Until then, the hypothesis was that the relationship between nerve cells is not total and that between these structures there were gaps called synapses.

In 1880 he discovered the nervous structure of the tendons. In 1883 he discovered and described the textile structure known as the Golgi apparatus. It is a vesicular and membranous joint folded in the cytoplasm of several cells that is responsible for the accumulation and transport of enzymes and/or hormones.

He was professor of anatomy at the University of Siena and at the University of Pavia he taught histology and pathology.

Since 1880 he has carried out research on malaria, analyzing the relationships between the origin of the disease and its subsequent evolution. The result of this work is a study on the different manifestations of malaria.

In 1906 he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology with Ramón y Cajal. Golgi continued to investigate and teach until in 1926 he went to look for a hero in his house in Pavia.