born July 7, 1843/44, Corteno, Italy
died Jan. 21, 1926, Pavia
Italian physician and cytologist.
He devised a way to stain nerve tissue and with it discovered a neuron , now called the Golgi cell, that has many short, branching extensions (dendrites) and connects other neurons. This led to identification of the neuron as the basic structural unit of the nervous system. He also discovered the Golgi tendon organ (the point at which sensory nerve fibres branch out within a tendon) and the Golgi apparatus (a cell organelle that packages large molecules for transport). He shared a 1906 Nobel Prize with Santiago Ramón y Cajal (b. 1852
d. 1934).
Golgi, 1906
By courtesy of the Wellcome Trustees