He is regarded as a founder of endocrinology:[1] in 1894 he discovered and demonstrated the existence of adrenaline together with George Oliver, and he also coined the term "endocrine" for the secretions of the ductless glands.

[2] Schafer coined the word "insulin" after theorising that absence of a single substance normally produced by the pancreas was responsible for diabetes mellitus.

In 1888, in Spain, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, having used the Italian scientist Camillo Golgi's technique for staining nerve cells, published his discovery of the nerve synapse, which in 1889 finally gained acceptance and won Ramón y Cajal recognition as a, alongside Golgi – many say, the – "founder of modern neuroscience".

[5] Sharpey-Schafer was appointed Assistant Professor of Practical Physiology in 1874 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1878 when he was 28 years old.

[3] In 1902 he commissioned the Scottish architect Robert Lorimer to design Marly Knowe, a substantial Arts and Crafts villa in the coastal town of North Berwick, east of Edinburgh.

[9] He was the recipient of many honorary degrees and prestigious medals both at home and abroad, including the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh.

[13] His grandson, Edward Peter Sharpey-Schafer, was Professor of Medicine at St Thomas' Hospital, London from 1948 until his death in 1963.