The Cajal Club: Its origin, originator and benefactor, Wendell J. S. Krieg

The Cajal Club is a small organization of neuroscientists that has met annually since it was founded in 1947. The fourteen founding members voted at its organizational meeting that the Club be named to honor the great Spanish Neuroscientist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal. The beginnings and the early development of the Cajal Club that was led by Professor Wendell J. S. Krieg, a distinguished neuroanatomist and artist, are described. Since its beginnings, the Cajal Club meetings have provided a forum where scientists and their students can gather congenially to present and discuss research on the nervous system. In the 1980s, Wendell J. S. Krieg sold his summer home near Woods Hole, Massachusetts and donated part of the proceeds from that sale to the Cajal Club to fund awards for recognizing scientists and students for outstanding research on the cerebral cortex. The Cajal Club voted that the awards thus funded would be called Krieg Cortical Kudos. Now these awards have honored more than 60 investigators in this country and aboard for their outstanding research contributions. The development and final form of the contributions by the Krieg family for the Krieg Cortical Kudos awards are described.