Charles Bell
Encyclopedia
Sir Charles Bell was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 surgeon, anatomist, neurologist
Neurologist
A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...

 and philosophical theologian.

His three older brothers included John Bell
John Bell (surgeon)
John Bell was a Scottish anatomist and surgeon.Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland; an elder brother of Sir Charles Bell...

 (1763–1820), also a noted surgeon and writer; and the advocate George Joseph Bell
George Joseph Bell
George Joseph Bell was a Scottish advocate and legal scholar.-Early life:George Bell was born in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, a son of the Rev William Bell , a clergyman of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. He was the younger brother of the surgeon John Bell, and an elder brother of the surgeon...

 (1770–1843).

Life

Charles Bell was born in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 in November 1774, a son of the Rev William Bell, a clergyman of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, who died in 1779 when Bell was a small child. Bell grew up in Edinburgh, attending the High School  (1784-8) and Edinburgh University, where he took his medical degree in 1798. He conducted his surgical training as assistant to his elder brother John Bell.

He and his brother had remarkable artistic gifts, and together they taught anatomy and illustrated and published two volumes of A System of Dissection Explaining the Anatomy of the Human Body. Bell's career was characterized by the accumulation of quite extraordinary honours and achievements - and by acrimonious disputes unusual even by the standards of medicine during the Regency.

Shortly after his graduation Bell was admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh is an organisation dedicated to the pursuit of excellence and advancement in surgical practice, through its interest in education, training and examinations, its liaison with external medical bodies and representation of the modern surgical workforce...

 in Edinburgh, where he operated and taught anatomy. He and his brother published two additional volumes of their anatomical treatise in 1802 and 1804. Some aspects of his success, however, led to the jealous opposition of local physicians, and he was barred from practice at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary
The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh or RIE, sometimes mistakenly referred to as Edinburgh Royal Infirmary or ERI, was established in 1729 and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest voluntary hospital in the United Kingdom, and later on...

. He then moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1804, where he set up a private surgery and school of anatomy. From 1812 to 1825, together with his brother, Bell ran the Great Windmill Street School of Anatomy, which had been founded by the anatomist William Hunter
William Hunter (anatomist)
William Hunter FRS was a Scottish anatomist and physician. He was a leading teacher of anatomy, and the outstanding obstetrician of his day...

 (1718–1783). He also served as a military surgeon, making elaborate recordings of neurological injuries at the Royal Hospital Haslar
Royal Hospital Haslar
The Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport, Hampshire, England was one of several hospitals serving the Portsmouth Urban Area. The Royal Hospital Haslar officially closed as the last military hospital in the UK in 2007...

 and famously documenting his experiences at Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

 in 1815, where the anatomist Robert Knox
Robert Knox
Robert Knox was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist and zoologist. He was the most popular lecturer in anatomy in Edinburgh before his involvement in the Burke and Hare body-snatching case. This ruined his career, and a later move to London did not improve matters...

 commented very negatively on Bell's surgical abilities; (the mortality rate of amputations carried out by Bell ran at about 90%). Bell was instrumental in the creation of the Middlesex Hospital
Middlesex Hospital
The Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, United Kingdom. First opened in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally closed in 2005. Its staff and services were transferred to various sites...

 Medical School, and became, in 1824, the first professor of Anatomy and Surgery of the College of Surgeons in London
Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...

. In 1829, the Windmill Street School of Anatomy was incorporated into the new King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

. Bell was invited to be its first professor of physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

, but resigned shortly afterwards. Wishing to return to Scotland, he accepted in 1836 the position of Professor of Surgery at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

.

Bell died in the Midlands, travelling to London, in 1842.

Honours and Awards

Bell was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 8 June 1807, on the nomination of Robert Jameson
Robert Jameson
thumb|Robert JamesonProfessor Robert Jameson, FRS FRSE was a Scottish naturalist and mineralogist.As Regius Professor at the University of Edinburgh for fifty years, Jameson is notable for his advanced scholarship in natural history, his superb museum collection, and for his tuition of Charles...

, William Wright
William Wright (botanist)
William Wright was a Scottish physician and botanist.Born in March 1735 in Crieff, Perthshire, he studied at Crieff Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh, and obtained a medical degree at St. Andrews . He served as an apprentice with G Dennistoun in Falkirk , and became a navy surgeon in...

 and Thomas Macknight
Thomas Macknight
Thomas MacKnight was an Anglo-Irish newspaper editor, biographer and publisher. He was the originator of the Two Nations Theory in 1896, which argues that the Ulster Protestants are a distinct Irish nation....

. He served as a Councillor of the RSE from 1836-9.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London on 16 November 1826, was knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

ed in 1831 and, like Sir Richard Owen, was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...

.

Works

Charles Bell was a prolific author. Shortly after arriving in London, he set his sights on the Chair of Anatomy at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

, and, in furtherance of this career goal, he published Essays on The Anatomy of Expression in Painting (1806), later re-published as Essays on The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression in 1824. In this work, Bell followed the principles of natural theology
Natural theology
Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...

, asserting the existence of a uniquely human system of facial muscles
Facial muscles
The facial muscles are a group of striated muscles innervated by the facial nerve that, among other things, control facial expression. These muscles are also called mimetic muscles.-Structure:...

 in the service of a human species with a unique relationship to the Creator
Creator deity
A creator deity is a deity responsible for the creation of the world . In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator deity, while polytheistic traditions may or may not have creator deities...

. After the failure of his application, (Sir Thomas Lawrence
Thomas Lawrence
Thomas Lawrence may refer to:*Sir Thomas Lawrence, British artist, President of Royal Academy*Thomas Lawrence , mayor of colonial Philadelphia*T. E. Lawrence, "Lawrence of Arabia"*Thomas Lawrence , U.S. politician...

, later President of the Royal Academy, described Bell as "lacking in temper, modesty and judgement"), Bell turned his attentions to the nervous system.


Bell published his detailed studies of the nervous system
Nervous system
The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...

 in 1811, in his privately circulated book An Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1318665/pdf/janatphys00211-0151.pdf He described his experiments with animals and later emphasised how he was the first to distinguish between sensory
Sensory nerve
Sensory nerves are nerves that receive sensory stimuli, such as how something feels and if it is painful, smooth, rough, etc.They are made up of nerve fibers, called sensory fibers .Sensory neurons are neurons that are activated by sensory input Sensory nerves are nerves that receive sensory...

 and motor nerves. This essay is considered by many to be the founding stone of clinical neurology
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...

. However, Bell's original essay of 1811 did not actually contain a clear description of motor and sensory nerve roots as Bell later claimed, and Bell seems to have issued subsequent incorrectly dated revisions with subtle textual alterations. Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

 (and others) found in Bell's published views more evidence of his personal ambitions than of proper scientific enquiry. Bell's studies on emotional expression
Emotional expression
In psychology, emotional expression is observable verbal and nonverbal behaviour that communicates emotion. Emotional expression can occur with or without self-awareness...

, flawed though they were, played a catalytic role in the development of Darwin's considerations of the origins of human emotional life; and Darwin very much agreed with Bell's emphasis on the expressive role of the muscles of respiration
Muscles of respiration
The various muscles of respiration aid in both inspiration and expiration, which require changes in the pressure within the thoracic cavity. The respiratory muscles work to achieve this by changing the dimensions of the thoracic cavity....

. Darwin detailed these opinions in his The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is a book by Charles Darwin, published in 1872, concerning genetically determined aspects of behaviour. It was published thirteen years after On The Origin of Species and is, along with his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin's main consideration...

 (1872), written with the active collaboration of the psychiatrist James Crichton-Browne
James Crichton-Browne
Sir James Crichton-Browne MD FRS was a leading British psychiatrist famous for studies on the relationship of mental illness to neurological damage and for the development of public health policies in relation to mental health...

.

Nevertheless, Bell was one of the first physicians to combine the scientific study of neuroanatomy with clinical practice. In 1821, he described in the trajectory of the facial nerve
Facial nerve
The facial nerve is the seventh of twelve paired cranial nerves. It emerges from the brainstem between the pons and the medulla, and controls the muscles of facial expression, and functions in the conveyance of taste sensations from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue and oral cavity...

 and a disease, Bell's Palsy
Bell's palsy
Bell's palsy is a form of facial paralysis resulting from a dysfunction of the cranial nerve VII that results in the inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. Several conditions can cause facial paralysis, e.g., brain tumor, stroke, and Lyme disease. However, if no specific cause...

 which led to the unilateral paralysis of facial muscles, in one of the classics of neurology, a paper to the Royal Society entitled On the Nerves: Giving an Account of some Experiments on Their Structure an Functions, Which Lead to a New Arrangement of the System.

He also combined his many artistic, scientific, literary and teaching talents in a number of wax preparations and detailed anatomical and surgical illustrations, paintings and engravings in his several books on these subjects, such as in his book Illustrations of the Great Operations of Surgery: Trepan, Hernia, Amputation, Aneurism, and Lithotomy (1821). He wrote also the first treatise on notions of anatomy and physiology of facial expression
Facial expression
A facial expression one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur...

 for painters and illustrators, titled Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting (1806). In 1833 he published the fourth Bridgewater Treatise, The Hand: Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design.

A number of discoveries received his name:
  • Bell's (external respiratory) nerve: The long thoracic nerve.
  • Bell's palsy
    Bell's palsy
    Bell's palsy is a form of facial paralysis resulting from a dysfunction of the cranial nerve VII that results in the inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. Several conditions can cause facial paralysis, e.g., brain tumor, stroke, and Lyme disease. However, if no specific cause...

    : a unilateral idiopathic
    Idiopathic
    Idiopathic is an adjective used primarily in medicine meaning arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause. From Greek ἴδιος, idios + πάθος, pathos , it means approximately "a disease of its own kind". It is technically a term from nosology, the classification of disease...

     paralysis
    Paralysis
    Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...

     of facial muscles due to a lesion of the facial nerve
    Facial nerve
    The facial nerve is the seventh of twelve paired cranial nerves. It emerges from the brainstem between the pons and the medulla, and controls the muscles of facial expression, and functions in the conveyance of taste sensations from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue and oral cavity...

    .
  • Bell's phenomenon
    Bell's phenomenon
    Bell's phenomenon is a medical sign that allows observers to notice an upward and outward movement of the eye, when an attempt is made to close the eyes. The upward movement of the eye is present in the majority of the population, and is a defensive mechanism...

    : An upward movement of the eye
    Human eye
    The human eye is an organ which reacts to light for several purposes. As a conscious sense organ, the eye allows vision. Rod and cone cells in the retina allow conscious light perception and vision including color differentiation and the perception of depth...

     and the eyelid
    Eyelid
    An eyelid is a thin fold of skin that covers and protects an eye. With the exception of the prepuce and the labia minora, it has the thinnest skin of the whole body. The levator palpebrae superioris muscle retracts the eyelid to "open" the eye. This can be either voluntarily or involuntarily...

     which occurs when a person affected with Bell's paralysis tries to close the eye.
  • Bell's spasm: Involuntary twitching of the facial muscles
    Facial muscles
    The facial muscles are a group of striated muscles innervated by the facial nerve that, among other things, control facial expression. These muscles are also called mimetic muscles.-Structure:...

    .
  • Bell-Magendie law
    Bell-Magendie law
    In anatomy and neurophysiology, this is the finding that the anterior spinal nerve roots contain only motor fibers and posterior roots only sensory fibers and that nerve impulses are conducted in only one direction in each case...

     or Bell's Law: States that the anterior branch of spinal nerve
    Spinal nerve
    The term spinal nerve generally refers to a mixed spinal nerve, which carries motor, sensory, and autonomic signals between the spinal cord and the body...

     roots contain only motor fibers and the posterior roots contain only sensory fibers.

Further reading

  • Bell, C., The Hand. Its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design; Bridgewater Treatises, W. Pickering, 1833 (reissued by Cambridge University Press
    Cambridge University Press
    Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...

    , 2009; ISBN 9781108000888)
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