XV 



of his pupils now hold high and important positions in the medical 

 profession and in other departments of science ; and all of them are 

 ready to acknowledge, and none more emphatically than the most 

 distinguished among them, their debt of gratitude to their biological 

 teacher, not alone for the exact and solid information which they 

 derived from his instructions, but also for the scientific spirit and 

 love of truth which he endeavoured to instil into their minds. 



Dr. Sharpey was by no means a copious writer ; and indeed, it may 

 be said that from his extreme fastidiousness with regard to all that 

 emanated from his pen, he was much too sparing of authorship. 

 Accordingly, much of the original observation and thought on 

 scientific subjects which cost him prolonged labour, and involved 

 much research, was made known by him only through his lectures, or 

 was published in a more or less fragmentary form in connexion with 

 such systematic works as " Baly's Translation of Muller's Physiology," 

 and " Quain's Anatomy." In the first of these works, it is well 

 known that the excellent translator, who was a distinguished pupil of 

 Dr. Sharpey's class, derived much assistance in his labours from 

 his teacher ; and several notable additions were made to the work 

 by contributions from Dr. Sharpey's pen. Among these, one of the 

 most important is that taking the modest form of a note, in which 

 he gave an account of original observations made by himself on 

 the structure of the uterine glands and membrana decidua, and 

 brought forward the first rational explanation of the manner in 

 which the human ovum comes in the commencement of pregnancy 

 to be imbedded in the substance of the decidua. In 1843-46, Dr. 

 Sharpey published, as joint editor with Professor Richard Quain, 

 the fifth edition of Dr. Jones Quain's " Elements of Anatomy," which, 

 from the amount of new matter introduced, and changes made by 

 the editors, assumed almost the character of a new work. In this 

 edition, the general anatomy was entirely re- written by Dr. Sharpey, 

 and has ever since been looked upon as a standard work on the sub- 

 ject of which it treats, containing the record of a large number of 

 original observations upon the minute structure and growth of bone, 

 and on many other subjects. "The Anatomy of the Brain and 

 Heart," " Of the Organs of Respiration and Voice, " " Of Digestion 

 and Reproduction," were also from his pen. With the three sub- 

 sequent editions of this work, Dr. Sharpey remained connected as one 

 of the editors till the time of his death. 



In 1862, Dr. Sharpey delivered the "Address in Physiology," at 

 the thirtieth annual meeting of the British Medical Association, held 

 in London in that year ; and, as President of the Biological Section 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at the 

 Dundee Meeting in 1867, he delivered an address, in which, as in the 

 one previously mentioned, he ably reviewed the progress of physi- 



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