Charles Scott Sherrington

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Charles Scott Sherrington
Charles Smart Roy and Charles Scott Sherrington (right), at the entrance to the old Cambridge Institute of Pathology in 1893.

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 the functions of neurons , he and Edgar Douglas Adrian received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1932 .

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

Life

Charles Scott Sherrington was born in London on November 27, 1857 as one of four sons of the country doctor James Norton Sherrington, who worked near Yarmouth (Isle of Wight) , and his wife Anne Brookes Thurtell . He received his early education at a grammar school (a kind of high school) in Ipswich , where he studied the ancient languages, mainly Latin and Greek, so intensively. Encouraged by his stepfather, he began his medical training at St. Thomas' Hospital and the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1879 he continued his medical studies at Caius College , Cambridge. Sherrington's interest in the nervous system was awakened at the International Congress of Medicine in London in 1881, as the physiologist Friedrich Leopold Goltz from Strasbourg his debarked dogs demonstrated. Sherrington asked Goltz to examine the rest of the nervous system of his stripped animals. Goltz gave him permission to do so; with these studies, which he carried out together with the professor of physiology , John Newport Langley , in Cambridge , his career as a neurophysiologist began. In 1884 Sherrington and Langley published the first report after Sherrington had worked as an undergraduate at Cambridge for three years , where he also received his doctorate in 1884.

Sherrington spent a long time in Germany during the training period after he graduated from Cambridge University in 1885 . In Berlin he attended the lectures of Hermann von Helmholtz , for whom he felt deep admiration. On the other hand, he thought Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond was an extremely fascinating lecturer. His training on the continent was followed by his first appointment as a lecturer in physiology at the St. Thomas 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 in Liverpool . Some of his best work on the nervous system was based on research at the Brown Institute, including his monograph on the peripheral distribution of fibers from the posterior roots of the spinal cord . His investigations into the reciprocal innervation of antagonistic muscles also began at this time.

On August 27, 1891, he married the native of Preston Manor in Suffolk Ethel Mary Wright (about 1869-1933). They had a son, Charles Ely Rose Sherrington (1897–1971).

Sherrington next investigated sensitive dermatomes by disrupting three consecutive posterior nerve roots and analyzing the distribution of sensory deficits. Once this was established, he turned his attention to the phenomenon of decerebrate rigidity to ( "decerebrate rigidity"), which he then for the first time in the Croonian Lecture , 1897, described. Like many young scientists, he was used to write a special section for Michael Foster's textbook on physiology . In this book he introduced the term synapse (Greek συναψις = connection) into neurology, which was immediately adopted and has been in common use ever since.

In 1906 his book about "the integrative activity of the nervous system" appeared, which was based on the Silliman lectures. This work by Sherrington marked a turning point in experimental human physiology, as it was the first time that John Hughlings Jackson's concepts of the origin of function were explained and many new names were introduced; they are used today by neurophysiologists around the world (e.g. proprioception and nociceptors ).

After his work as a professor of physiology in London, which he began in 1895, Sherrington was appointed to Oxford in 1913 to take over the chair of physiology here as the successor to Francis Gotch . After the end of the war, he threw himself into his research on the mechanisms of posture that had been interrupted by the war, with his new colleague Edward George Tandy Liddell. With the help of an optical myograph, he began researching the “myotatic” reflexes that are triggered by stretching a muscle.

Sherrington received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1932 for his research on reflex events and the regeneration processes in nerve tissue.

In old age he philosophized about the meaning of his life's work. In a 1933 speech given to Cambridge University on "The brain and its mechanism" ( The brain and its mechanism ), he lingered a long time on the topic of "the brain as an organ of the mind" . He came to the conclusion that no clear relationship between body and soul could be demonstrated. When he was awarded an honorary title in Bern in 1931 , the physiologist Leon Asher gave a short address in which he spoke of Sherrington as the “philosopher of the nervous system”. Many attendees at the ceremony believed that Sherrington was long gone; his personal demeanor after the address triggered the loud cheers of a huge audience. This ovation upset Sir Charles at first, then he thanked him with his usual kindness.

Further honors

The Royal Society awarded him the Royal Medal in 1905 and the Copley Medal in 1927 . In 1906 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1918 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1924 to the National Academy of Sciences . Sherrington was also a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Académie des sciences .

Works (selection)

  • 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
  • Man on His Nature The Gifford lectures, Edinburgh: New York: MacMillan, 1937-1938.

literature

  • Holger Münzel: Max von Frey. Life and work with special consideration of his sensory-physiological research. Würzburg 1992 (= Würzburg medical historical research , 53), ISBN 3-88479-803-0 , p. 201 f. ( Sir Charles Scott Sherrington ).
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Sherrington, Sir Charles Scott. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1326.

Web links

Wikiquote: Charles Scott Sherrington  - Quotes
Commons : Charles Scott Sherrington  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 225.
  2. ↑ Member entry of Sir Charles Sherrington at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 12, 2012.
  3. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed April 7, 2020 .
  4. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter S. Académie des sciences, accessed on March 1, 2020 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Sherrington, Charles Scott
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British neurophysiologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH March 4th 1952
Place of death Eastbourne