Camillo Golgi

Born on 7th July 1843 in a small village in the Valcamonica mountains called Cortena (present-day Cortena Golgi), Bartolomeo Camillo Golgi was the third of four children.

His father, Alessandro, was a native of Pavia but moved to Corteno in 1838 as a district doctor. Golgi grew up with the strong example of a father who woke up every morning, left the house with his doctor’s case, and headed off to some remote mountainside farmhouse to help the dying or deliver babies. Camillo also studied medicine, with the “sole aspiration of completing the […] professional diploma” at the University of Pavia, where he graduated in 1865 aged 22. After his degree, he began his clinical activity at the San Matteo hospital in the medicine, surgery and dermatology departments. He soon became an assistant at the Psychiatry Clinic run by eminent psychiatrist, Cesare Lombroso. This sparked Golgi’s interest in brain studies.

Under the scientific, philosophical doctrine of positivism, anatomical and anthropological characteristics became the instruments with which the biology of the day explored neuropsychiatric illnesses. Therefore, in concert with Lombroso, Golgi began to dedicate himself to the aetiological research of mental and neurological illnesses from an experimental and anti-metaphysical viewpoint.

Meanwhile, Golgi attended the General Pathology Institute run by Giulio Bizzozero in his free time from the hospital. Bizzozero was a leading exponent of new, experimental medicine. Through Bizzozero, Golgi developed a passion for histological research as the means of penetrating the extraordinary mystery of the nervous system architecture, whose “hidden structure” contained the secret of all physical and behavioural phenomena. Although Bizzozero was three years younger than Golgi, he became his teacher, protector and intellectual “catalyst”.

Under Bizzozero, between 1870 and 1872, Golgi began publishing a number of papers. The most important was on neurology and was welcomed by international literature. Towards 1872, Golgi acquired a solid reputation as a clinician and histopathologist, yet this was not enough to get him a satisfactory university position.

Under pressure from his father, in 1872 Golgi took part in a competition for the job of consultant at the Charitable Hospice for Incurable Diseases (Pia Casa degli Incurabili) in Abbiategrasso, near Milan.

His arrival in a small-town hospital seemed to suggest that his research activity was over. Nonetheless, after some initial obstacles, Golgi set up a rudimentary laboratory in the kitchen of his small apartment with just a few instruments and a microscope. On 16th February 1873, he wrote feverishly to his friend, Nicolò Manfredi: “I work many hours at the microscope. I’m happy to have found a new reaction to demonstrate even to the blind the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. I make silver nitrate react on pieces of brain that have been hardened in potassium bichromate. I have already achieved very good results and hope to obtain more.” This is the first evidence of the invention of the black reaction (and also the discovery of a chemical-biological phenomenon).

The black reaction entails an initial ‘fixation’ phase of the nerve tissue in potassium bichromate, followed by subsequent immersion in silver nitrate. The result is obtained by the selective scattering of salt (silver chromate) which fills in all parts of the neuron and glia, including all their extensions. The unique aspect of this intracellular reaction is its partiality: only a few of the nerve cells in the microscopic range (between 1% and 5%) stain black and, consequently, appear much more defined that the rest. It is a bit like pinpointing a single tree and all its branches from a dense forest. The discovery of the black reaction sparked off a genuine, scientific revolution that allowed the morphology and basic architecture of brain tissue to be demonstrated in all its complexity. This contributed greatly to the foundation of modern neuroscience.

While still at Abbiategrasso, using his black reaction, Golgi discovered axon ramification and the fact that dendrites are not fused together in a network. Furthermore, he studied the cerebellum structure (describing, among the other things, the so-called Golgi’s cells of the cerebellar cortex); olfactory bulbs; and anatomical-pathological changes in cases of chorea (Golgi described the typical lesions in the corpora striata).

Meanwhile, Golgi began putting together a general theory on the organisation of the brain, called the ‘diffuse nervous net’. According to this theory, axons are connected (through direct diffusion or close contact) in a diffuse network along which nerve impulses travel. This concept would clash in highly controversial manner with the ‘neuron theory’ of the 1890s, championed by Spaniard, Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Ironically, Cajal’s research was carried out using Golgi’s staining method.

Following the discovery of the black reaction, in 1876 Golgi became histology professor at the University of Pavia (and he taught anatomy at the Unversity of Siena for a few months that same year). From 1879 onwards, he was General Pathology professor and obtained the honorary direction (with direct clinical responsibilities) of a medical department at the San Matteo hospital.

In 1878, he described two kinds of sensory tendon corpuscles: Golgi’s tendon organ (proprioceptors) and Golgi-Mazzoni corpuscles (pressure transductors). He also created the potassium bichromate staining and mercury dichloride (1878-1879) methods. He discovered the myelin horny funnels (Golgi and Rezzonico, 1879) and meticulously analysed different regions of the nervous system, producing beautiful illustrations along the way.

Between 1885 and 1892, Golgi concentrated on studing human malaria. He soon determined the entire intra-erythrocytic development cycle of the malarial parasite, the plasmodium, (Golgi’s cycle), and the time relationship between fever attack and parasite segmentation (Golgi’s law).

He also continued research on renal histology, histopathology and histogenesis (1884-1889) and discovered important relations between the vascular pole of the Malpighian glomerule and the distal tube, which plays a key role in regulating blood pressure. He published important clinical studies on peritoneal blood transfusion, intestinal parasitic infection, regeneration and pathological changes in the kidneys. Independently of Swedish histologist, Erik Müller, Golgi observed the parietal cell canaliculi of gastric glands, often referred to as Müller-Golgi tubules.

Between late 1893 and 1896, he was rector of the University of Pavia. At the end of his mandate, he returned his attention to the nervous system. Using a variant of the black reaction, in 1897 he observed a ‘reticulum’ in the cytoplasm of spinal ganglia cells, which he dubbed the ‘internal reticular apparatus’. This later became known as ‘Golgi’s apparatus’ or ‘Golgi’s complex’. It was around this time that he also observed the perineuronal network, a reticular structure that envelopes several neurons.

In the 20th century, Golgi’s creativity waned although he continued publishing articles until 1923. He divided his time between his new responsibilities at the helm of the University of Pavia (he was Rector again between 1901 and 1909) and his duties as Senator of the Kingdom of Italy (he was elected in 1900).

In 1906, at the peak of his international fame, Golgi received the Nobel prize for Physiology and Medicine together with his eternal, scientific rival, Ramón y Cajal.

In those years, Golgi also fought tooth and nail against the establishment of a university in Milan, which he viewed as a threat to Pavia. He feared that, sooner or later, it would undermine the university.

During the First World War, Golgi ran Pavia’s Collegio Borromeo military hospital, where he led the rehabilitation of the war wounded. In 1918, aged 75, he retired but continued to teach as professor emeritus until early 1920.

He died in Pavia on 21st January 1926.

Golgi’s laboratory saw: Carlo Martinetti’s identification of the cell in the cerebral cortex that would bear his name; Aldo Perroncito’s description of nerve regeneration phases; Emilio Veratti’s observation of the sarcoplasmatic reticulum; and Adelchi Negri’s discovery of intraneuronal formations (Negri’s corpuscles) in the brains of humans and animals infected with rabies. Many other scientists studied and specialised at the laboratory: Giovanni Battista Grassi, who discovered the Anopheles mosquito that transmits malaria; Antonio Carini, who discovered the Pneumocystis carinii; and Fritjof Nansen, a Norwegian zoologist who won the Nobel peace prize in 1922.