The Italian physiologist Camillo Golgi (1843-1926) is recognized as one of the fathers of cell biology. Specifically, he is known for the development of a technique that revolutionized modern science: the silver staining technique, or Golgi technique. Not only that, but there are different cellular tissues that even today bear his name.

In this article we will see a brief biography of Camillo Golgi and we will review some of the most important features of his life and his scientific legacy.

Biography of Camillo Golgi: Life of a Cytology Pioneer

Camillo Golgi was born on 7 July 1843 in the town of Corteno, now the province of Brescia, in Italy. In 1865 he graduated from the University of Padua with a degree in medicine and began to practice psychiatry and criminology. However, his interest soon shifted to histology (the discipline that studies the structure, development and functions of organ tissues).

Specifically, while working in the experimental pathology laboratory under the guidance of histology professor Giulio Bizzozero, Golgi took an important interest in the development of experimental and research techniques in the same discipline.

Later, while working as a physicist in a research residency for people with chronic disorders (in the laboratory of the Hospital of Chronicity III, in Abbiategrasso, Italy), Golgi developed a method that was decisive for the advance of science in terms of knowing our cellular composition.

He also taught at the University of Tori and the University of Siena and finally became a professor of histology at the University of Pavia. Within the same university he was appointed coordinator of the department of medicine and later became rector.

Camillo Golgi is recognized as one of the most important physicists and biologists for the development of modern science, especially for the neurosciences of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Golgi’s method and the neural network

Between 1872 and 1875, Camillo Golgi worked as a physiologist in a residence for people with chronic neurological disorders in Italy. Golgi developed a method that is still known today as the “golgi technique” .

This is a basic histological procedure that roughly consists of combining different chemicals and then depositing them on the intracellular walls. More specifically, it involves producing a chemical reaction between potassium dichromate and silver nitrate , which results in a chemical compound called silver chromate, also known as silver chromate, whose formula is Ag2CrO4.

In visual terms, it is a group of red salts, without colour or taste, which have different reactions when in contact with different elements. Among other things, silver chromate is one of the compounds that has enabled us to develop modern photographic printing.

What Golgi discovered, and later Ramon y Cajal perfected, was that it was possible to dye cellular tissues using silver chromate , and by doing this, the parts that make up those tissues could be clearly visible to human eyes.

This is how it was first possible to take and print photographs of our cells. Specifically Golgi discovered a type of cell, now known as the “golgi cell”, which has different extensions (dendrites) that serve to connect with other cells.

Staining applied to neurons

After going through different processes of refinement of the technique, Golgi and Ramón y Cajal applied the silver staining technique to visualize the composition of the neurons . Thus, they found that the neurons did not exist in isolation and were not connected by continuity, but by contiguity, which means that their connections occur directly through different axons that communicate each neuronal body with the next.

They described this as a kind of neural mesh or network and were the first to take clear impressions of such a network. Furthermore, they argued that the basic structure of the nervous system is precisely the neurons, something that was revolutionary for neuroscientific studies at the time, and that is an essential part of the development of contemporary neuroscience .

Scientific recognition and legacy

The technique of silver staining applied to the study of neurons won Golgi and Ramón y Cajal the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1906. In addition to this prize, in 1913 Golgi became a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of the Netherlands and on his retirement he was Professor Emeritus at the University of Pavia.

On the other hand, one of the most popular and representative works of Golgi’s legacy is the note entitled “In the structure of the grey matter of the brain”, published by the Italian medical journal in 1873. In the following years Golgi continued to publish various articles with images of the cellular networks. He is also credited with having discovered the sensory bodies of the tendons , which are now known as the “golgi’s tendon” organs.

Bibliographic references:

  • Encyclopedia Britannica. Camillo Golgi, Italian physician and cytologist. Retrieved June 13, 2018. Available at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Camillo-Golgi
  • Torres-Fernández, O. (2006). Golgi’s silver impregnation technique. Commemoration of the centenary of the Nobel Prize for Medicine (1906) shared by Camilo Golgi and Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Biomedical, 26: 498-508.