Ramón y Cajal, microbiologist.

(Fig. 1) moved to Valencia to take up the chair of Anatomy at the University of Valencia. He was full of enthusiasm to carry on with the histology studies he had recently begun in Zaragoza with the help of only a modest Verick microscope bought with his savings from his work as a medical captain in Cuba and a barber's razor as a microtome. He and his wife liked Valencia. He described it like this: " I found myself in a new country, with a very mild climate, with fields full of blooming agaves and orange trees, with people in whose spirit nested courtesy, culture and talent. No wonder Valencia is called the Athens of Spain. " Ramón y Cajal wanted to carry out micrographic studies as well as become involved in the social life of the city; he wanted to meet cultured people and to be able to practice photography and chess, hobbies, he said, " where you do not bet money but your brain, our greatest capital asset. " He joined the Casino de Agricultura and the Ateneo Valenciano. The latter was a scientific-literary club where the cream of Valencia's youth used to gather. His salary as a university professor was poor so for a little extra income he set up a small laboratory in his own house where he gave Histology and Pathological Histology lab lessons. His students were physicians who were either preparing their doctorates or anxious to acquaint themselves with microscopy and bacteriological anatomy, a promising new science that had sprung from the brilliant discoveries made by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. The 1880s were years of major achievements in the knowledge of infectious diseases. The French school, led by Pasteur, and the German, led by Koch, laid the foundations of bacteriology, which developed dramatically over those years and the first decade of the 20th century. By The author, grandson of Ramón y Cajal, wrote this text as the Preface to the facsimile published on the occasion of the " Cajal on consciousness " Congress held in Zaragoza (Nov. 29–Dec. 1, 1999) to commemorate the centennial of the publication of " Textura del sistema nervioso del hombre y de los vertebrados ". The book includes the monograph " Studies on the cholera virgule microbe and prophylactic innoculations " written by Ramón y Cajal for the County Council of Zaragoza.