On this date in 1857, Nobel prize-winning physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington was born in London, England. Sherrington, who is best known for his research into how nerves work together in higher animals, coined the words synapse and neuron: synapse to describe when a nervous impulse travels from one nerve cell to another, and neuron to name the nerve cell itself. He also named and studied three sets of sense organs: interoceptive (to distinguish taste); exteroceptive (to sense light, the tactile, odor and sound); and proprioceptive (to feel what happens inside the human body). Sherrington is widely credited with influencing brain surgery during the beginning of the 20th century, and how physicians and other practitioners should treat atrophy and paralysis.

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