XIV 



Richard Quain was named Professor of Anatomy ; it being de- 

 termined that Dr. Sharpey should in his course treat fully of physi- 

 ology, or of the functions of the body along with minute and visceral 

 anatomy, and that Professor Quain should occupy himself with the 

 descriptive and practical departments of anatomy. There was thus 

 established in London, for the first time, the full and systematic teach- 

 ing of physiology, which had previously been only imperfectly treated 

 as an appendage to the courses of anatomy in the London medical 

 schools. 



The great success of Dr. Sharpey as a teacher in his favourite 

 departments of biology was from the first apparent in the large 

 number of his pupils, the close attention and deep interest with 

 which he was listened to, and the marked influence which he 

 exercised on the minds of the students, and in all the affairs of 

 the school with which he was now connected. With all the interests 

 of University College, as it was named after the institution of the 

 London University, he soon became identified, while at the same 

 time he took an active part in the business of other scientific bodies 

 of the metropolis. 



Dr. Sharpey never wrote out his lectures, excepting an intro- 

 ductory one, and he delivered them all without any assistance from 

 writing beyond very short jottings on small slips of paper. He made 

 use of diagrams and pictorial illustrations as well as of anatomical 

 preparations and physiological experiments, and he was one of the 

 first to introduce the employment of the microscope for the practical 

 illustration of his lectures. For this purpose he employed more than 

 forty years ago a revolving table which still exists in the physiologi- 

 cal laboratory of University College, and which enabled a number of 

 persons in succession to observe through one microscope ; the first 

 attempt made in London to illustrate physiological lectures micro- 

 scopically. And thus in later times, when the improvement of the 

 apparatus and methods of experimenting had become greatly ex- 

 tended, he lent all his influence to the establishment of the practical 

 teaching in physiology which has since been so fully carried out in 

 the Jodrell Laboratory for practical physiological experiment and 

 research. 



Dr. Sharpey's course of instruction was continued much in the 

 same form during the long period of thirty- eight years in which be 

 held the chair ; the same scrupulous care in the preparation of his 

 lectures, and the same conscientious performance of his public duties 

 which he had shown in the earlier and most vigorous periods of his 

 life being maintained to the last ; and when we consider the number 

 of those who followed his instructions, varying, with the fluctuating 

 numbers attending the school, between 100 and 350 in each year, the 

 wide-spread influence of his teaching can easily be understood. Many 



