The discovery by Ramon Cajal and Santiago Golgi (who shared the Nobel Prize in 1906) that neurons have these processes began the era of modern neuroscience. Golgi developed a technique of staining neurons that involved depositing silver on the processes (now called the Golgi technique), but despite the fact that he developed the technique, even in his hands it was capricious. Ramon Cajal, an eclectic medical doctor - scientist was able to exploit the technique maximally. He stained nervous tissue from a variety of species, and had the rare artistic gift of being able to reproduce through detailed drawings what he observed through the microscope. To this day, many of the drawings continue to be reproduced in neuroscience textbooks. In addition, he was the first to develop the technique of taking pictures through the microscope, thus becoming the "father of photomicroscopy".
Cajal's extensive observations on brains from many types of animals led him to formulate the neuron doctrine. He hypothesized that the processes emanating from the stained neurons were in fact connected in a circuit like pattern. It was through these connections that neurons functioned. It was not until the advent of electron microscopy that neuroanatomists were able to discern why the Golgi technique was effective in staining neuronal processes. It is now known that the silver was attracted to the cellular "skeleton" (neurofilaments) within dendrites and axons.