Nobel Prize 1906 for Medicine

REASON: for the researches made on the structure of the nervous system

Camillo Golgi was born at Corteno, near Brescia on 7 July 1844. After completing his studies of Medicine at the University of Pavia, at the school of the distinguished professor Bizzozzero, he entered on academic career till he was appointed ordinary teacher of Anatomy at the University in Siena in 1875 for one year. Then he moved  back to Pavia where he was offered the professorship in Histology and added a complementary course to microscopic technique. In 1881 also General Pathology was added. Before Golgi the colouring substances used for microscopic observation of cells were  ffective means to show the microscopic structure of nearly all tissues of organism except nervous ells that appeared grossly and could not be identified properly.

Golgi divulgated a new method of chrome- silver colouring that was named after him: It appeared first on the “Lombard Medical Gazette” of Milan in 1873 and then with more details on the “ Experimental Riviera of Freniatria” of Reggio Emilia in 1882, 1883, 1885. The new method makes it  possible to display the entire nervous cell. It has permitted all further developments in the anatomy and pathology of the nervous system. 

Camillo Golgi also had the great merit to discover particular nerve endings situated in a passage zone between muscles and tendons, called Golgi’s corpuscles that have the very important function of controlling mobility and reflex movements. Another fundamental discovery of Golgi is represented by one of the most important apparatus of the cell: the so called “Golgi’ s apparatus “, absolutely indispensable for life  and that he was able to identify and describe thanks to his observations and colourings of tissues.

Another remarkable discovery of the Italian scientist was the correlation between bouts of fever of malaria and the burst of the red blood cell, with the coming out of parasitic contained in it at that stadium of the disease and their consequent circulation in the stream of blood. He also stated the “Principles of Golgi”  stating that the seriousness of malaria depended on the number of parasitic in the blood and explained the mechanisms of quinine on them and the necessary dose according to their stage of development. Together with a few critics Camillo Golgi received  the greatest approval and admiration all over the world mainly  for  his works on neurology and neuro- anatomy.