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to render most important assistance. It may be further mentioned, 

 that in 1870, along with other members of the Society, he was active 

 in the introduction of a new plan for the election of Councillors, by 

 which effect was given to the opinion of the whole Council, instead of 

 the members being nominated by the President as previously. 



Up to the age of sixty-eight or seventy, Dr. Sharpey retained most 

 of the vigour of his earlier years; but about the year 1871, and still 

 more decidedly in the following year, while some other signs of 

 advancing age showed themselves in the partial failure of his digestive 

 and locomotive powers, the rapid increase of a cataract, which affected 

 both eyes, together with some dulness of hearing, began to interfere 

 seriously with the efficient and easy performance of his official duties, 

 and to take much from his pleasure in society ; and very soon these 

 affections led to his retirement, first, as already stated, from the 

 Secretaryship of the Royal Society, in 1872, and second, from his 

 Professorship in University College, in 1874. These infirmities were 

 partially remedied by the operation of extraction of the lens of the left 

 eye, in May, 1873, and of that of the right eye in October, 1876 ; but 

 the recovery was not sufficient to give him more than a very limited 

 use of his sight. 



About the same time, Dr. Sharpey became subject to occasional 

 attacks of bronchitis, from exposure to cold. One of these, occurring 

 in 1878, was of great severity, and in the present year a renewed 

 attack of the same malady with which he was seized at the end of March 

 proved fatal on the 11th April, or ten days after he had completed his 

 seventy-eighth year. He was buried in the Abbey graveyard of 

 Arbroath, his native towD, on the 17th of April, and on the day of 

 the departure from London, his remains were accompanied by a large 

 number of his friends and former pupils to the Euston Station of the 

 North-Western Railway. 



In 1869 the friends and former pupils of Dr. Sharpey, being desirous 

 to carry out a design which had been for some time in contemplation 

 of showing their regard for him, and establishing a permanent 

 memorial of his services to University College and to science, raised 

 by subscription a sum of money for endoAving a Sharpey Memorial 

 Scholarship in connexion with University College, and for presenting 

 to the college a portrait in oil, and a marble bust. The proceedings 

 in connexion with the presentation of this memorial were naturally a 

 source of much gratification to himself and to his friends. 



In 1872 he made over his large and well-chosen biological library to 

 University College, and at his death he bequeathed from the small 

 property which he left a sum of £800 to increase the endowment of 

 the Sharpey Scholarship in physiology. 



Upon his retirement from his Professorship in 1874, Mr. Gladstone's 

 Government accorded Dr. Sharpey an annual pension of £150 on 



