Charles Scott Sherrington

On March 4, 1952, this eminent scientist breathed his last in Sussex, England at the age of 94.

In 1916, he openly supported women being admitted to the medical school at ‘Oxford University’, making him an early feminist. His favorite past-time was collecting and reading old books.

Charles Sherrington was born in Islington, an area of London, Great Britain, on November 27, 1857. The identity of his parents has been a subject of debate, with some sources saying his father was James Norton Sherrington, a country doctor, and Anne Brookes. Other sources say that Charles, as well as both of his brothers, were the sons of Anne Brooks and Caleb Rose, a surgeon in Ipswich.

Charles grew up under the tutelage of Caleb Rose, who maintained an excellent selection of books, paintings and geological items, which sponsored a lifelong love of art and intellectual curiosity. At the age of 14, he enrolled in the ‘Ipswich School’.

As a young man, he began studying with the ‘Royal College of Surgeons’ in England. He also wanted to study at Cambridge but his family could not afford it.

In 1876, he enrolled at St. Thomas' hospital to study medicine. Three years later, he entered Cambridge as a non-collegiate student to pursue a course in physiology.

In 1883, he took home many top honors in ‘Natural Sciences Tripos’, an international academic competition.

In 1884, he was admitted as a member of the ‘Royal College of Surgeons’. The same year, he and a fellow scientist published a landmark paper on brain surgery they had conducted on a dog.

In 1885, he earned a Bachelor's degree in Medicine and Surgery from ‘Cambridge University’. He was also hired by ‘Cambridge University’ to travel to Spain to investigate an outbreak of Asiatic cholera.

In 1886, Sherrington successfully became a licentiate of the ‘Royal College of Physicians’, a prestigious group of elite medical experts. During the same year, he was sent to Italy to investigate another cholera outbreak.

In 1891, he was appointed to become the superintendent of the ‘Brown Institute for Advanced Physiological and Pathological Research’ of the ‘University of London’, where he conducted both human and animal research.

In 1892, he discovered the unique muscles that initiate the stretch reflex. For the next two years, Charles would publish several papers on the subject of spinal reflexes and nerve supply to the muscles.

Though Charles Sherrington is credited with numerous discoveries in the field of biology, his most important contribution is the theory which explains the function of a neuron and the mechanism behind occurrence of reflexes in the human body, known as the ‘Sherrington’s Law’.