Three-dimensional images of Ramón y Cajal's original preparations, as viewed by confocal microscopy.

The drawings prepared by Santiago Ramón y Cajal have an inherent beauty as well as being accurate and arose partly as a result of the difficulty contemporary photographic methods had in reproducing informative images of the thick sections he used. Modern methods are better and in this brief article Alan Boyde presents some three-dimensional images of these historical preparations, generated by confocal microscopy.