Camillo Golgi was born of humble parentage at Corteno (Valcamonica) on July 9, 1843, and died at Pavia on January 21, 1926. At 22 years of age he completed his medical studies in the University of Pavia, and subsequently acted as Assistant in various cliniques of the Faculty of Medicine there. He was most assiduous in his attendance at the Laboratory of Experimental Pathology, at that time under the direction of Bizzozero, the discoverer of the blood-plates. He had, for financial reasons, to leave Pavia for a time and take charge of a hospital for chronic patients, but he allowed no difficulties to discourage him, and, even in apparently uncongenial surroundings, carried on his researches. In 1873 he discovered the famous Black Reaction, which, in the practice of histology, has since borne the name of the “reaction of Golgi.”