The Artist Who Mapped the Hidden Brain

In 1888, Spanish scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal bent over his microscope in Barcelona and began to draw what no one had ever truly seen — the individual cells of the human brain. For decades, scientists assumed the brain was a tangled, undifferentiated web. Cajal proved them wrong. Using a special staining technique and extraordinary patience, he sketched neuron after neuron by hand, revealing that each cell was a distinct, exquisitely crafted structure with its own shape, its own branching pattern, its own purpose.…