“A recent paper published by Dr. Juan Manuel Espinosa-Sánchez (Hospital Universitario Vírgen de las Nieves and Universidad de Granada), Dr. Fernando de Castro (Instituto Cajal-CSIC), Dr. Nicolás Pérez_Fernández (Clínica Universidad de Navarra), and Dr. Ángel Batuecas-Caletrio (Hospital Universitario de Salamanca, IBSAL and Universidad de Salamanca) is a clear example of the actuality of the Legado Cajal and similar archives for current Science. The paper, published in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy (https://doi.org/10.3389/fnana.2024.1476640) and including amazing original illustrations by the universally considered as father of the modern Neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), clearly show that Cajal must be also considered a pioneer among the founders describing the organization of the vestibular system, with Kölliker, Held, Bárány or Retzius.

Cajal´s descriptions of the nerve endings in the sensory epithelia, the structure of the vestibular nerve and Scarpa ganglion, the afferent vestibular fibers, vestibular nuclei, the lateral vestibulospinal tract, the vestibulocerebellar connections, or the fine structure of the cerebellum, were originally published in Spanish journals with very low impact, and only years later included in the compilation “Textura del Sistema Nervioso del Hombre y los Vertebrados” (1899-1904). This later treaty was the only source cited by other pioneers in the vestibular system, like Retzius or Barany. Thanks to correspondance analyzed in their current paper, Espinosa-Sánchez and the others offer the contents of a letter written by Robert Bárány in 1913 (two years before being awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) to Cajal, requesting histological slides that displayed the ascending and descending roots of the vestibular nerve as well as the vestibulo-cerebellar fibers; in this letter, Bárány, recognizing Cajal as the only source of truly precise data in the field: “only your very precise data exist. The data from other authors are debatable”.