Santiago Ramón y Cajal demonstrates, between 1888 and 1906, using an improved Golgi stain, that the nervous system is made up of discrete individual cells — neurons — and not a continuous network, refuting Golgi's reticular theory. He formulates the Law of Dynamic Polarization: the nerve impulse travels in a set direction through the neuron. His masterwork *Textura del sistema nervioso del hombre y de los vertebrados* (1899–1904) documents thousands of original preparations. The 1906 Nobel Prize is shared with Camillo Golgi, defender of the opposing reticular theory, in one of the most ironic scientific disputes in history: the committee simultaneously rewards two scientists with contradictory theories, with Cajal's being the one that later consensus fully validates.