A century of "unity in contiguity".

A CENTURY OF " UNITY IN CONTIGUITY " Hundred years is a very small time span in the history of mankind, but the last one hundred is by no means small. T r e m e n d o u s p r o g r e s s h a s b e e n m a d e i n m a n y f i e l d s o f science including Neuroscience. Probably it was recognized that this would be the case exactly a century ago when the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine for the year 1906 was a w a r d e d t o t w o e m i n e n t n e u r o s c i e n t i s t s , n a m e l y C a m i l l o Golgi and Ramon y. Cajal. It was also a landmark in the history of the Nobel Prize in that this was the first time that a Nobel Prize was shared. The knowledge about the nervous system was very vague a n d f u l l o f c o n t r a d i c t o r y t h e o r i e s t i l l t h e l a t e 1 9 th – early 20 th Century. At the same time, research was being done to address these issues. Prof. K A H Morner aptly summed up the scenario in his Nobel Presentation speech. " I t s h o u l d b e r e m e m b e r e d i n p a r t i c u l a r t h a t a l m o s t nothing was known for certain of the relationship between nerve fibres and nerve cells. The central nervous system appeared as a confused mass of filaments, each as fine as the thread of a spider's web, and of microscopic cells armed with cellular processes. It was impossible to isolate the individual components of tissue specimens. Nor was it possible to resort to known staining methods by which, for example, a single nerve cell with its processes could be distinguished as a n e n t i t y. For these reasons Golgi's method …