115 
of Edinburgh, Session 1880-81. 
by Dr Sharpey, and this part has ever since been looked upon as a 
standard work on the subject of which it treats, containing the record 
of a large number of original observations on the minute structure and 
growth of bone and on many other topics. 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 subsequent 
editions of this work Dr Sharpey remained connected as one of the 
editors till the time of his death. 
Up to the age of sixty-nine or seventy years Dr Sharpey retained 
most of the vigour of his earlier life. But about the year 1871 
some signs of advancing age showed themselves, and more especially 
the rapid increase of cataract, affecting both eyes, began to interfere 
with the easy and efficient performance of his official duties, and 
led to his retirement from the secretaryship of the Boyal Society in 
1872, and from his professorship in University College in 1874. 
His blindness was only partially remedied by the extraction of the 
cataractic lens of one eye in May 1873, and of the other in October 
1876. About the same time Dr Sharpey became subject to attacks 
of bronchitis from any unusual exposure to cold. One of these had 
nearly proved fatal in the winter of 1878, and he at last succumbed 
to an attack of the same malady on the 11th of April of the present 
year (1880), ten days after he had completed his seventy-eighth 
year. He was buried in the Abbey Graveyard of Arbroath, his 
native town, on the 17th of April. 
In 1869 the friends and former pupils of Dr Sharpey, being 
desirous of showing their regard for him and establishing a perma- 
nent memorial of his services to University College and to science, 
raised by subscription a sum of money for endowing a “ Sharpey 
Memorial Scholarship ” in connection with University College, and 
for presenting to the college his portrait in oil and a marble bust. 
In 1872 Dr Sharpey 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 Scholarship in Physiology. 
Upon his retirement from his professorship in 1874, Mr 
Gladstone’s government accorded Dr Sharpey an annual pension of 
£150 on account of his eminent services as a public teacher and 
man of science. 
