Neuron doctrine

Ramón y Cajal's drawing of the cells of the chick cerebellum, from *Estructura de los centros nerviosos de las aves*, Madrid, 1905

The neuron doctrine is the concept that the nervous system is made up of discrete individual cells, a discovery due to decisive neuro-anatomical work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal and later presented by, among others, H. Waldeyer-Hartz.^[1] The term neuron (spelled neurone in British English) was itself coined by Waldeyer as a way of identifying the cells in question. The neuron doctrine, as it became known, served to position neurons as special cases under the broader cell theory evolved some decades earlier. He appropriated the concept not from his own research but from the disparate observation of the histological work of Albert von Kölliker, Camillo Golgi, Franz Nissl, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Auguste Forel and others.^[2]^[3]

^ Finger S (2001). Origins of neuroscience: a history of explorations into brain function. Oxford University Press US. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-19-514694-3.
^ Shepherd GM (1991). Foundations of the neuron doctrine. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-506491-9.
^ Anctil, Michel (2015). Dawn of the Neuron: The Early Struggles to Trace the Origin of Nervous Systems. Montreal & Kingston, London, Chicago: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-4571-7.

[1] Finger S (2001). Origins of neuroscience: a history of explorations into brain function. Oxford University Press US. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-19-514694-3.

[2] Shepherd GM (1991). Foundations of the neuron doctrine. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-506491-9.

[3] Anctil, Michel (2015). Dawn of the Neuron: The Early Struggles to Trace the Origin of Nervous Systems. Montreal & Kingston, London, Chicago: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 978-0-7735-4571-7.

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