The English physiologist Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952) described the fundamental mechanisms of the working of the mammalian nervous system. He formulated the principle of the reciprocal innervation of effectors and discovered the functional significance of muscle receptors.

Charles Scott Sherrington was born on Nov. 27, 1857, in Islington. He began his medical studies at the Royal College of England and ended them in 1879 at St. Thomas Hospital in London as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Then he went to Cambridge, where he soon became a fellow of Caius College.

Neurophysiology soon attracted Sherrington, and his first two publications, which he authored in collaboration with J. W. Langley, were devoted to the study of secondary degenerations of the spinal cord of a dog which had undergone an experimental excision of the cerebral cortex. These papers revealed Sherrington's mastery over histological techniques which were such an important asset...