Charles Scott Sherrington became one of the founders of the discipline of neurophysiology through his research on how nerve impulses are transmitted between the central nervous system and muscles. Sherrington focused much of his career on understanding the structure and the function of the nervous system. Drawing on the research of Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón Cajal, Sherrington proposed viewing nervous activity as part of an integrated and complex system. For his work on how the central nervous system elicits motor activity from muscles, Sherrington shared the 1932 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with Edgar Douglas Adrian.

Born November 27, 1857, in London, England, Sherrington was the son of James Norton and Anne (Brookes) Sherrington. James Sherrington died while his son was still very young, and later Sherrington's mother married Caleb Rose, Jr., a physician in Ipswich, England. Rose was broadly and classically educated, and his home served as...