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Nerve cells
The body's electrical system
Czech physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkinje is the first to describe two distinct parts of nerve cells. Purkinje writes of nerve cells as “central forms which are related to the elementary nerve fibers in the same way as central stations of power generators are to the conducting wires.” These “central forms” would later be known as somas, whereas the “elementary nerve fibers” are to be called axons and dendrites. The connections between nerve cells would be studied further by the Spanish neuroscientist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, and his Italian associate, Camillo Golgi.