The Italian doctor Bartolomeo Camillo Emilio Golgi He was born on July 7, 1843 in Corteno, a small town in Val Camonica (Brescia), which was renamed Corteno Golgi in his honor. The young man Camillo he was probably influenced by his father, a physician who practiced his profession with passion. Therefore, after finishing high school, he enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Pavia, where he graduated in 1865 with a thesis on “etiology of mental illness“discussed with Cesare Lomborso, the controversial physician pioneer of criminology.
The future Nobel laureate became interested in the study of the brain, working at the San Matteo Hospital in Pavia; in 1872 he accepted the position of Medical Director of the Abbiategrasso Hospital for the chronically ill. In this hospital he began his research on the nervous system in a kitchen suitably transformed into a small histology laboratory.
It was in this makeshift laboratory that he developed the particular nerve cell staining technique which would take the name of black reaction (or Golgi method): a revolutionary method that allows coloring nerve cells and their structure; a technique whose applications are still innumerable, even today.
Camillo Golgi He was a famous teacher, his laboratory was open to anyone who was eager to conduct research.
Only in 1885, after twelve years of the invention of the black reaction technique, the work of Golgi spread and was valued. The first international awards came to him in 1887, when the German physician and histologist Rudolf Albert Koelliker (1817-1905) showed the Physico-Medical Society of Wurzburg, some Golgi preparations, prepared by himself, following the instructions of the Italian histologist.
In addition to studies on the nervous system Golgi made great discoveries about the Plasmodium malariae (a parasite that causes malaria in humans and dogs), formulating the “Golgi Law“which allowed him to treat and cure malaria patients with quinine at the right time. At the age of 53, when the vast majority of teachers would be happy to teach their students, thanks to the black reaction technique, discovered the Golgi apparatus, one of the fundamental components of the cell that would be confirmed many decades later, thanks to the arrival of the electron microscope.
In his life he also found the time and the opportunity to dedicate himself to politics; His experience in this field was reflected in his appointment as health commissioner of the Municipality of Pavia, member and president of the National Health Council, and senator of the Kingdom of Italy (1900).
During the First World War he directed the Pavia Military Hospital and promoted the rehabilitation of war wounded, creating a center for the rehabilitation of injuries to the peripheral nervous system.
Camillo Golgi He died at the age of 82 on January 21, 1926 in Pavia, where he is buried.