Sherrington
In the early thirties Sherrington, then I think in his eighties, there being no retirement age, was Professor of Physiology in Oxford. It was his Indian summer and there resulted the famous book- Reflex Activity of the Spinal cord. His co-authors were Eccles, Liddell, Denny-Brown, Creed and Sybil Cooper. I knew, to some extent, each of these. They all seemed to revere Sherrington. I have been told, I do not know with what accuracy, that Oxford then the world centre of neurophysiology possessed two string galvanometers ! In my first term Oxford straight up from school, Michaelmas 1940, Sherrington came to lecture. I was told about this and said ‘Who is Sherrington ?’ and did not go. The lecture was held in Lady Margaret Hall. Apparently if you did not get there an hour before you were turned away because the lecture theatre was already full to capacity. Who can command such audiences now ? What were the downsides to his character? Reg Passmore who recently died had been an honours physiology student in the thirties whilst Sherrington was the professor. He told me that if you were not in the front row at one of Sherrington’s lectures you could not hear him. If however you were in the front row you could not understand him. Was he an obscurantist ? Whitteridge, who was there at about the same time idolised Sherrington. One story I heard was that if a technician supplied him with a scalpel which he considered not sharp he would throw it to the floor and say (yell ?) ‘take this away’. I am something of an iconoclast in thinking that much of his writing is obscure and verbose ? I hope my computer will not be struck by lightening because I am airing these sentiments ! Geoffrey Walsh -- Geoffrey.Walsh@ed.ac.uk http://www.ed.ac.uk/~gwalsh Phone (0)131.664.3046 64, Liberton Drive, Edinburgh EH16 6NW UK