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Biographies de neurologues
 
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 L'histoire des neurosciences à La Pitié et à La Salpêtrière J Poirier
The history of neurosciences at La Pitié and La Salpêtrière J Poirier 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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mise à jour du
10 mars 2005
Charles Scott Sherrington
English neurophysiologist
born 27th November, 1857, London
died 4th March, 1952, Eastbourne, Sussex
 
 Les biographies de neurologues

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sherrington
Quotation
 
«The synaptic nervous system has developped as its distinctive feature a central organ, a so-called central nervous system; it is through this that it brings into rapport one with another widely distant organs of the body, including the various portions of the diffuse nervous sytem itself». page 312
 
«To move things is all mankind can do... whether whispering, or felling a forest» the motor system is the only avaiblae external outpout channel of the brain...
 
 sherrington
 
Yale University Press, New Haven 1911, first American edition, second printing (first was published in 1906). Cloth hard covers, 8vo, xviii + 411pp, 85 text figures. "Sherrington's Silliman Lectures at Yale stand as the true foundation of modern physiology; it is considered by Fulton to rank in importance with Harvey's De Motu Cordis, while Walshe asserts that it holds a position in physiology similar to Newton's Principia in physics." His work on the nervous system, especially his experimental studies on reflex action, has had a profound influence upon modern physiology.
Sherrington was a co-winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his discoveries regarding the functions of neurons.
 
"Charles Scott Sherrington was born on November 27, 1857, at Islington, London. In 1876 Sherrington began medical studies at St. Thomas's Hospital and in 1878 passed the primary examination of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a year later the primary examination for the Fellowship of that College. After a short stay at Edinburgh he went, in 1879, to Cambridge as a noncollegiate student studying physiology under Michael Foster, and in 1880 entered Gonville and Caius College there.
 
In 1881 he attended a medical congress in London at which Sir Michael Foster discussed the work of Sir Charles Bell and others on the experimental study of the functions of nerves that was then being done in England and elsewhere in Europe. At this congress controversy arose about the effects of excisions of parts of the cortex of the brains of dogs and monkeys done by Ferrier and Goltz of Strasbourg. Subsequently, Sherrington worked on this problem in Cambridge with Langley, and with him published, in 1884, a paper on it. In this manner Sherrington was introduced to the neurological work to which he afterwards devoted his life.
 
The years 1884 and 1885 were eventful ones for Sherrington, for during the winter of 1884-1885 he worked with Goltz at Strasbourg, in 1884 he obtained his M.R.C.S., and in 1885 a First Class in the Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge with distinction. During this year he published a paper of his own on the subject of Goltz's dogs. In 1885 he also took his M.B. degree at Cambridge and in 1886 his L.R.C.P.
 
In 1885 Sherrington went, as a member of a Committee of the Association for Research in Medicine, to Spain to study an outbreak of cholera, and in 1886 he visited the Venice district also to investigate the same disease, the material then obtained being examined in Berlin under the supervision of Virchow, who later sent Sherrington to Robert Koch for a six weeks' course in technique. Sherrington stayed with Koch to do research in bacteriology for a year, and in 1887 he was appointed Lecturer in Systematic Physiology at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, and also was elected a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1891 he was appointed in succession to Sir Victor Horsley, Professor and Superintendent of the Brown Institute for Advanced Physiological and Pathological Research in London. In 1895 he became Professor of Physiology at the University of Liverpool.
 
During his earlier years in Cambridge, Sherrington, influenced by W. H. Gaskell and by the Spanish neurologist, Ramón y Cajal, whom he had met during his visit to Spain, took up the study of the spinal cord. By 1891 his mind had turned to the problems of spinal reflexes, which were being much discussed at that time, and Sherrington published several papers on this subject and, during 1892-1894, others on the efferent nerve supply of muscles. Later, from 1893-1897, he studied the distribution of the segmented skin fields, and made the important discovery that about one-third of the nerve fibres in a nerve supplying a muscle are efferent, the remainder being motor.
 
In 1906 he published his well-known book: The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, being his Silliman Lectures held at Yale University the previous year, and in 1913 he was invited to become Waynfleet Professor of Physiology at Oxford, a post for which he had unsuccessfully applied in 1895, and here he remained until his retirement in 1936. Here he wrote, and published in 1919, his classic book entitled Mammalian Physiology: a Course of Practical Exercises, and here he regularly taught the students for whom this book was written……
 
The philosopher in him ultimately found expression in his great book, Man on his Nature, which was the published title of the Gifford Lectures for 1937-1938, which Sherrington gave. As is well known, this book, published in 1940, centres round the life and views of the 16th century French physician Jean Fernel and round Sherrington's own views. In 1946 Sherrington published another volume entitled The Endeavour of Jean Fernel.
 
Sherrington was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1893, where he gave the Croonian Lecture in 1897, and was awarded the Royal Medal in 1905 and the Copley Medal in 1927. In 1922 the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire and in 1924 the Order of Merit were conferred upon him. He held honorary doctorates of the Universities of Oxford, London, Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Wales, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paris, Strasbourg, Louvain, Uppsala, Lyons, Budapest, Athens, Brussels, Berne, Toronto, Montreal, and Harvard……… he died in 1952." (Website of the Nobel Foundation; winner 1932)
 

Sherrington's law = The law of reciprocal innervation: when one set of muscles is stimulated, muscles working against the activity of the first will be inhibited.
 
Sir Charles Scott Sherrington's research, spanning more than 50 years, laid the foundations for modern neurophysiology. He maintained that the most important function of the nervous system in higher animals is the coordination of the various parts of the organism. Although best known for his long series of studies on spinal reflexes, he made equally great strides in the physiology of perception, reaction, and behaviour. He was the first to adequately study the synapse and originated the term. He also introduced the term exterioceptor, proprioceptor and viscerocepter. In 1932 he shared the Nobel Prise in Physiology or Medicine with Edgar Douglas Adrian.
 
Sherrington was the son of Anne Brookes and James Norton Sherrington, of Caister, Great Yarmouth, a country physician who died when he was quite young. His mother married Caleb Rose, Jr., of Ipswich, a physician of wide cultural interests and a noted archaeologist. The Rose home, a gathering place for artists and scholars, helped to shape Sherrington's broad interest in science, philosophy, history, and poetry. One of his schoolmasters, Thomas Ashe, was a poet of considerable distinction.
 
After attending the Ipswich Grammar School from 1870 to 1875, Sherrington, encouraged by his stepfather, began medical training at St. Thomas's Hospital in London. He passed the primary examination of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1878, and a year later the primary examination for the Fellowship of that College. 
 
In 1879 he went to Cambridge as a noncollegiate student studying physiology under the "father of British physiology", Sir Michael Foster (1836-1907), and in 1880 entered Gonville and Caius College there. During the years 1881-1885 he worked chiefly under two of Forster's pupils who were already becoming world famous Ð John Newport Langley (1852-1925) and Walter Gaskell (1847-1914). Langley and Gaskell imparted to him their dominant interest in how anatomical structure reflects, or is expressed in, physiological function. 
 
In 1881 he attended a medical congress in London at which Sir Michael Foster discussed the work of Sir Charles Bell and others on the experimental study of the functions of nerves that was then being done in England and elsewhere in Europe. At this congress controversy arose about the effects of excisions of parts of the cortex of the brains of dogs and monkeys done by David Ferrier (1843-1928) and Friedrich Leopold Goltz (1834-1902) of Strasbourg. Subsequently, Sherrington worked on this problem in Cambridge with Langley, and with him published, in 1884, a paper on it. In this manner Sherrington was introduced to the neurological work to which he afterwards devoted his life.
 
In 1883 Sherrington became Demonstrator of Anatomy at Cambridge under Professor Sir George Humphrey, and during the winter session of 1883-1884 at St. Thomas's Hospital he demonstrated histology. 
 
From 1884 to 1887 Sherrington completed his medical courses. After graduation he worked with Langley, studying the anatomical changes in the cord and brain stem of decorticate dogs which had first been exhibited by Friedrich Goltz at the International Congress in 1881. This led to the first of many visits to Goltz' laboratory in Strassburg. 
 
Between 1884 and 1887 he turned his attention to bacteriology. In 1885 Sherrington went, as a member of a Committee of the Association for Research in Medicine, to Spain to study an outbreak of cholera, and in 1886 he visited the Venice district also to investigate the same disease. In Spain he met Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) and later persuaded him to lecture in England. He also went to Berlin to have the cholera material examined under the supervision of Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), who later sent Sherrington to Robert Koch (1843-1910) for a six weeks' course in technique. Sherrington stayed with Koch to do research in bacteriology for a year. Thus he gained a superb grounding in physiology, morphology, histology, and pathology. 
 
He obtained his M.R.C.S. in 1884 and in 1885 a First Class in the Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge with distinction. During this year he published a paper of his own on the subject of Goltz's dogs. In 1885 he also took his M.B. degree at Cambridge and in 1886 became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.
 
In 1887 Sherrington was appointed lecturer in physiology at St. Thomas's medical school in London, where he continued to investigate the spinal tract. From 1891 to 1905 he served as physician-superintendent of the Brown Institution, a centre for human and animal physiological and pathological research, succeeding Sir Victor Alexander Haden Horsley (1857-1916). Here he was able to observe animals with chronic spinal lesions. 
 
In 1895 Sherrington was appointed Holt Professor of physiology in Liverpool, where he did much of his best work. From 1913 until his retirement in 1935 he held Waynflete chair of physiology at Oxford, succeeding Francis Gotch (1853-1913).