GOLGI, CAMILLO

(1843–1926)

Born in the small mountain village of Corteno, near Brescia (Lombardy), Camillo Golgi won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1906 (the same year Giosue Carducci won the literature prize). Golgi studied at the University of Pavia in the 1860s and after graduating in 1865 worked as a doctor, winning in 1872 a public examination to become primario(head doctor of a ward) at the Abbiategrasso hospice for the terminally ill in Milan. It was while he was working there that Golgi made his first crucial discovery, which he published in a paper called “On the Structure of Brain Grey Matter.” This discovery was the so-called black reaction, the fact that by staining nervous tissue with silver nitrate, it was possible to see nerve cell structure in its entirety.“Golgi staining” is still used by doctors and researchers today. In 1876, Golgi was appointed professor of histology at Pavia University; in 1881, he became professor of general pathology. Over the next three decades, he made Pavia a center of world-class research in medicine, nurturing the careers of numerous outstanding young researchers.

Golgi’s discovery of black reaction set off a major scientific debate and was regarded as a crucial breakthrough in the field. He was subsequently to make many more discoveries. The distinction he made between the two types of nerve cells is standard today; they are known, in fact as “Golgi type 1” and “Golgi type 2” neurons. Golgi also made a fundamental contribution to the cure of malaria by understanding the cycle of the disease and by experimenting with quinine as its cure. In 1897–1898, Golgi discovered the so-called Golgi apparatus, a major breakthrough in cell biology that was, however, only confirmed in the 1950s and 1960s by the use of electron microscopes. In 1906, Golgi shared the Nobel Prize with the Spanish physiologist Santiago Ramon y Cajal. Golgi was rector of Pavia University and became a senator in 1900. He died in Pavia in January 1926.