Charles Scott Sherrington's Integrative Action: a centenary notice

Abstract

One hundred years ago Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1952), Holt professor of physiology in the University of Liverpool, chose as his subject for the Silliman Lectures for 1904 at Yale University ‘The Integrative Action of the Nervous System’; two years elapsed before they were published.1 The yearly series honoured a professional chemist, Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864), who lectured in mineralogy and geology and for his wide interest in natural history had been given an honorary MD. The lectures introduced the term integration into scientific neurology. Sherrington pointed out that reflexes had to be goal-directed, and that ‘the purpose of a reflex serves as legitimate and urgent an object for natural inquiry as the purpose of colouring of an insect or blossom’. His work and his emphasis was on spinal reflexes for he recognized that the spinal cord provides the simplest portion of the mammalian nervous system and yet displays examples of all its synaptic functions.