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The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine of 1906 was shared by the Italian Camillo Golgi and the Spaniard Santiago Ramón y Cajal for their contributions to the knowledge of the micro-anatomy of the central nervous system. In his Nobel Lecture, Golgi defended the going-out-of-favour Reticular Theory, which stated that the nerve cells--or neurons--are fused together to form a diffuse network. Reticularists like Golgi insisted that the axons physically join one nerve cell to another. In contrast, Cajal in his lecture said that his own studies confirmed the observations of others that the neurons are independent of one another, a fact which is the anatomical basis of the now-accepted Neuron Doctrine (Theory). This much is well documented. Less well known, however, is the fact that evidence against the Reticular Theory had been mounting for some time prior to the Nobel Lecture. The Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen had reported in 1887 that, in his studies of the primitive creatures he studied in the sea near Bergen, he found no connections between the processes of the ganglion cells in their nervous systems. Nor is it adequately appreciated that ten years earlier, in 1877, the Englishman Edward Schäfer had similarly described seeing no connections between the nerve elements in the mantles of the jellyfish. This paper begins by charting the research that led directly to the awarding of the 1906 Nobel Prize. It then shows that long before the ultimate vindication of the Neuron Doctrine, researchers in several countries had been accumulating evidence that undermined or contradicted the Reticular Theory.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal published the first of the three volumes of his principal life's work in 1899, and published the last volume in 1904. This book remains the definitive work on the morphology of the vertebrate nervous system. In it, Ramon y Cajal describes the structure and organization of virtually all parts of the nervous system and discusses his theories, including the neuron doctrine and the law of functional polarization, which are the cornerstones of modern neurobiology. A century later, Ramon y Cajal's work is still fundamental to understanding the nervous system.

Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930), the Norwegian explorer, oceanographer, statesman, Nobel Peace Prizewinner is best known for his arctic travels. He began his professional career as an invertebrate zoologist at the Bergen Museum in Norway but soon developed an interest in the histological structure of the nervous system. Along with His, Koelliker, Lenhossek and Forel he was a pioneer advocate of what came later to be known as the Neuron Doctrine, but his role is now generally relegated to the footnotes of the history of neuroscience. Comparison with the independent, parallel papers of His and Forel gives Nansen technical priority. The reasons for his relative obscurity as a pioneer neuroscientist are many, but foremost among them must be the persistent failure of Ramon y Cajal to acknowledge Nansen's pioneering insights.