Fulton compared Sherrington’s The integrative action of the nervous system to Harvey’s De Motu Cordis, while Walshe compared it to Newton’s Principia. It is rare for great scholars to proffer such encomiums.

In 1893 Sherrington had coined the term “proprioceptive”. By 1900, his research permitted him to conclude that the cerebellum is the head ganglion of the proprioceptive system. In 1898 he described and elucidated decerebrate rigidity in the cat. Years later he discovered and analysed the stretch reflex. Each of these major contributions was a fundamental, original advance.

In The integrative action of the nervous system,¹ Sherrington introduced a further new concept.² He elucidated the synapse, a nexus for reflex–arc function, the neurone theory, and synaptic transmission. However, Hans Held, in 1897, the year Sherrington introduced the term synapse, had described:

“For the time being the nerve cells zones of transfer appear histological as mainly variable and variously constituted pathways between …