120 NATIONAL TRENDS IN BIOLOGY 



Spain 



When one thinks of Spain from a scientific point of 

 view, one name that seems to spring forth instantly is that 

 of S. Ramon y Cajal, one of the world's great leaders of 

 histological research, especially as applied to the anatomy 

 of the nervous system. In fact, the Nobel Prize in 

 medicine came to him and to Golgi in 1906 for this work. 

 In a recent letter to the author, Professor Ramon y Cajal 

 bemoans the fact that while the scientific world reads 

 English, French, and German, the language of the His- 

 panic peninsula remains an unknown page to scientists. 



And one has but to go over his interesting Recuerdos 

 de mi Vida, a big book of over 500 pages, to realize that 

 his reproach is not unmerited. The Brazilians and the 

 Portuguese have the same reproach, for, while workers 

 in these countries subscribe to and read our journals, we 

 know nothing of their work and publications unless some 

 national figure of other lands discovers, usually by acci- 

 dent, an outstanding worker in fields whose language is 

 not among the "big three." It was so even with Ramon 

 y Cajal. Had it not been for the German, W. Krause, 

 who was so impressed by the young Spaniard's work 

 that he called his fellow scientists' attention to it, even 

 this greatest of living anatomists might have remained 

 unknown to us. 



Ramon y Cajal and his students have done so much 

 work that the reader must be referred to the book previ- 



