Sir Charles Sherrington, O.M, F. R. S. (1857-1952) An Appreciation

Abstract

Few men of science have approached so near to life’s hundredth anniversary as Charles Sherrington. He died at the age of ninety-five. Few have served life’s changing purposes so wisely and effectively in each succeeding decade. He was a quiet lovable man who had far too keen a sense of humour to be anything but modest. He was a true genius in whose mind, the most complicated findings were viewed critically and reduced to simple facts and clues. He played his part in every stage of life with enthusiastic gaiety, accepting fame, when it came, with true humility— and sorrow, when it came, with steadfast courage. He was bom in London, but spent his boyhood in Ipswich, and grew to young manhood in a home of quiet culture where art and good literature and good conversation were as familiar to him as tea and toast. He was small of body, but he became a wiry, muscular lad and an athlete who excelled at rugby football. He continued to indulge his love of sport until the middle years of his life, rowing, sailing, ski-ing, climbing. When he had finished school, he set out upon a scholar’s pilgrimage, beginning with medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital, London, and following the routine steps to the Royal College of Surgeons. He went on to physiology, first at Cambridge University, then Liverpool and finally Oxford. He devoted himself to teaching and specialized research. He gave service to his fellows through the Royal Society, the Physiological Society, and the Journal of Physiology .