The early years of the 19th century was a era of exciting discovery in physiology in medical centres throughout Europe. An early training in surgery, combined with extensive exposure to major European centres and a receptive mind, was to prove an ideal preparation for the surgeon who came to be regarded as the father of modern physiology in Britain. William Sharpey was a life-long friend of James Syme, whose teaching had an important influence on the young Joseph Lister. Indeed it was Sharpey who sent Lister to join Syme in Edinburgh. One of his most distinguished pupils, Schafer, acknowledged his debt to his teacher by taking on his name to become Sir Edward Sharpey-Schafer.
William Sharpey was born in Arbroath, the son of a local ship owner. He entered Edinburgh University and learned anatomy under John Barclay at the extramural school.
At this early stage in his life he began to visit some of the greatest continental teaching centres where the greatest advances in physiology were being made. His fluency in French and German and his links with continental colleagues allowed him to bring continental discoveries and thinking to the attention of the British scientific community. He began his remarkable pilgrimage to Europe in 1821 with a visit to Paris where he learned clinical surgery from Dupuytren and operative surgery under Lisfrank. It was here that he met James Syme whose friendship he maintained until the latter’s death in 1870. Returning to Edinburgh to graduate MD he settled for a short time in medical practice in Arbroath with his stepfather, Dr. Arnott, but this short exposure to clinical practice appears to have convinced him that his future lay in science. In 1826 he began a prolonged tour of Europe visiting centres in France, Switzerland, Rome, Naples, Balonia, Padua, Berlin, Heidelberg and Vienna, a trip which took almost three years. Shortly after returning he was elected Fellow of the College and began to give lectures on systematic anatomy in the Edinburgh extramural school. Sharpey became one of a small group in Edinburgh who were pioneers in the use of the achromatic lens which advanced microscopy. From this he was able to define cilia and wrote an important paper on the phenomenon of ciliary movement. He was elected FRCSEd in 1830.
In 1334 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and two years later was appointed to the Chair of anatomy and physiology in University College London. His referees included Dr. John Abercrombie (QV), Sir George Ballingall (QV), Sir David MacLagan (QV) and James Syme.
His lectures at University College were popular and Lister, who attended them as a medical student, described the profound influence which they had on his career and his work. Lister was later to write “as a student at University College, I was greatly attracted by Dr. Sharpey’s lectures which inspired me with a love of physiology that has never left me”.
Sharpey’s career flourished at a time when the important discoveries of Claude Bernard, of Helmholtz and of Virchow were being published and Sharpey was able to tranlate these and others and bring them to the attention of the British scientific community. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society going on to become its Secretary.
His legacy to British physiology was considerable. The European contacts and friendships which he made and maintained at a crucial time for scientific discovery were amongst his greatest assets. He was buried in the Abbey Graveyard in Arbroath.
