1. William Sharpey FRS FRSE LLD was a Scottish anatomist and physiologist.
25 Facts About William Sharpey
1. 2.
William Sharpey was born in Arbroath on 1 April 1802, the youngest son of the five children Mary Balfour and Henry Sharpy, a shipowner from Folkestone who died before William Sharpey was born.
3.
William Sharpey was educated at the high school in Arbroath and, in November 1817, began studies at the University of Edinburgh, firstly studying humanities and natural philosophy.
4.
In 1821, William Sharpey graduated with an MB ChB and was admitted a member of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons.
5.
William Sharpey then went to London to broaden his anatomical experience in the private school of Joshua Brookes in Blenheim Street.
6.
William Sharpey went to Paris in the autumn, and remained there for nearly a year, learning clinical surgery from Guillaume Dupuytren in the wards of the Hotel Dieu, and operative surgery from Jacques Lisfranc de St Martin.
7.
William Sharpey then appears to have settled for a time in Arbroath, where he began to practise under his step-father, Dr Arrott; but he then set out on a long hike in Europe, by foot through France to Switzerland, and on to Italy.
8.
William Sharpey was then in Berlin for nine months working under Karl Rudolphi, and after that was at Heidelberg under Friedrich Tiedemann, and at Vienna.
9.
William Sharpey established himself in Edinburgh in 1829, and in the following year he obtained the fellowship of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, presenting a probationary essay On the Pathology and Treatment of False Joints.
10.
William Sharpey was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1834, his proposer being Sir Robert Christison.
11.
In July 1836 William Sharpey was appointed to the chair of anatomy and physiology in the University of London in succession to Jones Quain.
12.
William Sharpey was appointed in 1840 one of the examiners in anatomy at the university of London, and he was a member of the senate of the University.
13.
William Sharpey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 9 May 1839.
14.
William Sharpey was made a member of its council in 1844, and was appointed one of the secretaries in place of Thomas Bell in November 1853, an office which he held until his retirement.
15.
William Sharpey was for 15 years, from April 1861, one of the members appointed by the Crown on the general council of medical education and registration.
16.
William Sharpey was one of the trustees of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.
17.
William Sharpey's pupils included Michael Foster, George Oliver, and Burdon Sanderson.
18.
William Sharpey was on the Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science, and was a Fellow of the Geological Society.
19.
Troubled by failure of his eyesight, about 1871 William Sharpey retired from the post of secretary of the Royal Society, and in 1874 from his professorship at University College.
20.
William Sharpey died of bronchitis at 50 Torrington Square, London, on Sunday, 11 April 1880.
21.
William Sharpey was buried with his parents in the graveyard of Arbroath Abbey.
22.
William Sharpey was half-brother to James Arrott, head physician at Dundee Royal Infirmary.
23.
From 1829 to 1836 William Sharpey was engaged in scientific work, of which the earliest outcome was his paper on ciliary motion, published in 1830.
24.
William Sharpey contributed to the many editions of Quain's Anatomy.
25.
William Sharpey edited the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth editions of Jones Quain's Elements of Anatomy; and contributed to William Baly's translation of Johannes Peter Muller's Physiology, 1837 and 1840.