The Cajal Legacy: The papers of his granddaughter, Maria Angeles Ramón y Cajal Junquera.

Abstract

María Ángeles Ramón y Cajal Junquera (1934-2018) was the daughter of Luis Ramón y Cajal Fañanás (1892-1973), the Nobel Prize winner's seventh and last child. For years, father and daughter had been collecting documents related to Cajal. María Ángeles maintained a friendly relationship with one of the present authors (SGR) by telephone for about three years (mid-2012 to 2015). Unexpectedly, she donated 28 documents that she and her father had collected to SGR (press clippings, interviews, correspondence, lawsuits, etc). She and her father had collected. Herein, we analyze documents relating to Cajal's Legacy that belong to her father, her brother Santiago Ramón y Cajal Junquera, or her. The Cajal Legacy was given by the family to Francisco Tello, in accordance with the will of 1931. However, as they clarified, "in deposit, not donated," giving way to endless claims. A "semipermanent" exhibition of the precious Legacy at the National Museum of Natural Sciences opened in 2020, exhibiting some of its 28,223 pieces. A Royal Decree in 2024 promises to create the Cajal Museum in Madrid. The impressive Cajal classroom, where he taught for 30 years in the historic building of the old Faculty of Medicine, seems a suitable location. Recently, Cajal´s mansion has been transformed into luxury apartments. María Ángeles, who died in 2018, will be unable to see the objects that surrounded her childhood, now thrown out onto the street and sold at a street market.