Sherrington, Charles Scott, Sir

Biography

Physiologist. Born 1857, Islington. Attended Ipswich Grammar School. Entered St Thomas' Hospital, London, 1876. Scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 1881. First publication 1884. Qualified M.R.C.S. 1884, obtained M.B. 1885. Travelled to laboratories in Europe 1885. Elected to the Physiological Society 1885. Qualified L.R.C.P. 1886. Lecturer in systematic physiology at St Thomas' and fellow of Caius 1887.Secretary to the Physiological Society 1889-96. Professor-superintendent of Brown Animal Sanatory Institute, 1891. Gained M.D. 1892. Secretary of the International Physiological Congress 1892-1907. Fellow of the Royal Society, 1893. One of the first people to produce diphtheria anti-toxin, 1894. Became Holt professor of physiology at Liverpool, 1895. Qualified ScD 1904. Received the Royal Society's royal medal, 1905. Appointed to the Waynflete chair of physiology at Oxford and a fellowship at Magdalen, 1913-35. Visited St Petersburg. Fullerian professor of physiology at the Royal Institution 1914-7. Chairman of the Industrial Fatigue Research Board, 1918. President of the Royal Society 1920-5. Appointed GBE 1922. Order of Merit, 1924. Received the Royal Society's Copley medal 1927. Shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine 1932. Gave the Gifford lectures at Edinburgh 1937 & 1938. Coined the word "synapse" for the gap between nerve cells. Research "opened up an entirely new chapter in the physiology of the central nervous system". Became a book collector before he left Cambridge and was a trustee of the British Museum. Died Eastbourne, 1952. The Sherrington lectures were founded in the University of Liverpool in 1948.

Biography Date

1857-1952

Biography References

LOC; DNB;

Book List