Charles Scott Sherrington

Sir Charles Scott Sherrington ( born November 27, 1857 in London, † March 4, 1952 in Eastbourne, Sussex ) was a British neurophysiologist. For his discoveries in the field of functions of the neurons he received in 1932, together with Edgar Douglas Adrian the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

In 1897 he coined the term synapse. Sherrington's merit was to have founded the specialty of neurology in today's conception physiologically.

Life and work

Charles Scott Sherrington was born on 27 November 1857 as one of four sons of James Norton Sherrington in London. His early education he received in a grammar school in Ipswich, where he is so concerned with the study of ancient languages ​​, mainly Latin and Greek, was concerned that he could read the classical languages ​​fluently. Sherrington interest for the nervous system in 1881 awakened at the International Congress of Medicine in London, as the physiologist Friedrich Leopold Goltz of Strasbourg his debarked dogs demonstrated. Sherrington Goltz asked to be allowed to examine the rest of the nervous system of its decorticated animals. Goltz gave him permission to do so; with these investigations, which he performed together with the Professor of Physiology, John Newport Langley in Cambridge, began his career as a neurophysiologist. 1884 Sherrington published Langley and the first report after Sherrington had worked for three years as an undergraduate at Cambridge.

During the training period after his state examination Sherrington spent considerable time in Germany. In Berlin he attended the lectures of Hermann von Helmholtz, for whom he felt profound admiration. On the other hand he held Heinrich Emil du Bois- Reymond for an extremely fascinating lecturer. The training on the continent followed his first appointment to a professorship of physiology to the St. Thomas 's Hospital; later he was appointed professor and medical director of the Brown Institute ( 1891). Sherrington stayed here for four years and was then appointed to the chair of physiology to Liverpool. Some of his best work on the nervous system were built on the research at the Brown Institute, including his monograph on peripheral distribution of the fibers of the posterior spinal roots. His studies on the reciprocal innervation of antagonistic muscles began at this time.

Next Sherrington undertook studies on sensitive dermatomes by interrupted three consecutive posterior nerve roots and analyzed the distribution of sensitive deficits. Once this was established, he turned his attention to the phenomenon of Enthirnungsstarre ( " decerebrate rigidity" ), which he then for the first time in the Croonian Lectures, 1897, described. How many young scientists, he also has been exploited to write a special section for the Textbook of Physiology by Michael Foster. In this book, he introduced the term synapse (Greek συναψις = connection ) in the neurology, which was immediately accepted and since then generally in use.

In 1906, his book about " the integrative activity of the nervous system ", which had the Silliman Lectures on the basis. This work of Sherrington was a turning point of the experimental physiology of man, because were declared for the first time John Hughlings Jackson's conception of the origin of the function and introduced many new names; they are now used by neurophysiologists around the world ( eg proprioception and nociceptors ).

In 1913, Sherrington was appointed to Oxford to take over here as the successor of Francis Gotch the Department of Physiology. After the war, he threw himself into his research on mechanisms of posture, which had been interrupted by the war, with his new employee EGT Liddell. With the help of an optical Myografen he started researching the " myotatischen " reflexes that are triggered by straining a muscle.

At the age he philosophized about the meaning of his life's work. In a 1933 held in front of the Cambridge University speech on " the brain and its mechanisms " (The brain and its mechanism ) he stayed a long time with the theme of " the brain as the organ of the mind". He came to the conclusion that no clear relationship between body and soul could be detected. As in Bern him an honorary title was awarded in 1931, the physiologist Leon Asher gave a short speech in which he spoke of Sherrington as the " philosopher of the nervous system ". Many participants in this ceremony had believed that Sherrington was dead long ago; his personal appearance after the observations have triggered the cheers of a huge audience. This Ovation brought Sir Charles first out of the socket, then he thanked me with his usual kindness.

Other honors

The Royal Society awarded him the Royal Medal in 1905, 1927, the Copley Medal. Sherrington was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

Selected Works

• The Integrative Action of the Nervous System New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906
• Mammalian physiology. Oxford and London, 1919.
• The Reflex Activity of the Spinal Cord Oxford, 1932.
• The Brain and Its Mechanism. Cambridge, 1933