Bell on the Anatomy of Painting the Edinburgh Review
J Neurol. 2011; 258(6): 1189–1190.
Charles Bell (1774–1842)
J. van Gijn
Department of Neurology, University Medical Middle Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, 3584 CX Utrecht, Kingdom of the netherlands
Charles Bell is remembered every bit a neurophysiologist, although his work in this field was somewhat contentious. In fact, his many talents lay elsewhere: anatomist, draughtsman, writer, lecturer, surgeon and museum-architect. 1 of his biographers remarked that while he "did enough to lay the foundation of a dozen reputations, he did also much to complete one" [seven]. Too, his character sometimes impeded his career. Every bit his friend Francis Jeffrey wrote to him: "… a picayune also much appetite … and … a small degree of misanthropy, specially towards persons of your ain profession" [7].
Charles was born in 1774, the fourth son of an Edinburgh clergyman who died just 5 years later. His mother, Margaret Morice, not merely educated him but also stimulated his cartoon talents and had him taught by the painter David Allan. Later on just a few years at school Charles attended philosophy lectures at the University of Edinburgh while assisting his brother John (1763–1820) in his school of beefcake. John, also a talented draughtsman, obtained more bodies for dissection than the professor of anatomy (Alexander Monro, secundus) and was a practising surgeon besides. Formally John's apprentice from 1792, Charles contributed text and drawings to John's 'The Beefcake of the Man Trunk' and published 'A System of Dissections' under his ain name [i]. However, in 1799 John was forced to close his schoolhouse owing to growing animosity with the physicians of the Regal Infirmary; he continued as a surgeon simply. This left Charles in a void; his trusted brother George, a lawyer, advised him to try his luck in London.
In 1804 Bell started his life in London by visiting the local medical luminaries, including Matthew Baillie (nephew of the Hunters) and Sir Astley Cooper (surgeon at Guy's). Meanwhile, he had published several other books, on the anatomy of the brain [2], on nerves and on arteries. Also, he brought with him the manuscript of 'Anatomy of Expression in Painting' [3]. Within a year, after unsuccessful canvassing for the chair of anatomy at the Royal Academy, he bought a somewhat battered firm in Leicester Street to commencement his ain school of anatomy; it included room for house pupils and for a museum. At that place were at least v other schools of anatomy for the approximately 1,000 medical students in London. As a rule, bodies were illegally bought from grave robbers. The number of Bell's students increased slowly, as did his surgical practice. He published his 'Organization of Operative Surgery' and in 1809 travelled to Portsmouth to tend to the wounded soldiers brought back from the battle with Napoleon'south ground forces at La Coruña.
In 1811 he married Marion Shaw, sister of George'south wife Barbara, from Ayr (on Scotland's west coast) and moved to Soho Foursquare. His helpmate did not have to put up with business firm pupils and anatomical specimens for long, because a year subsequently Bell took over the school of anatomy in Keen Windmill Street, founded by William Hunter in 1767. Having been admitted to the Imperial College of Surgeons, he was appointed in 1814 to the surgical staff of the Middlesex Hospital. Meanwhile, his individual practice flourished, though it was said he lacked the panache of some illustrious contemporaries. In June of 1815, when the news of Waterloo reached London, he travelled to Brussels with John Shaw, his brother-in-law who had become a junior partner. For 8 days he operated on hundreds of wounded soldiers, especially the French, whose medical services had been dispersed. He did non waste product the opportunity to record a variety of wounds in sketches and watercolours.
Meanwhile, Bell's involvement with the nervous arrangement had taken a new turn in 1810, when he found in 'an animal' (probably a arrow canis familiaris) that the posterior filaments of spinal nerves were 'insensible', whereas touching or cutting the anterior filaments caused convulsions. It is important to proceed in mind that with the term 'sensibility' Bell did non refer to afferent impulses, every bit usual today, simply to intrinsic 'irritability' of nerves and muscles, a notion introduced past Francis Glisson (1597–1677) and Albrecht von Haller (1707–1777). This observation led Bell to believe that the encephalon consisted of a 'grand division': on the one hand the cerebrum, for 'impressions' and motions, connected with the anterior roots, on the other the cerebellum and posterior roots, 'governing the operation of the viscera'. He published this 'New Anatomy' in a printed pamphlet that he sent to friends and colleagues [4]. In 1822 Magendie [eight] revealed the truthful difference between anterior and posterior roots. He may have congenital on Bong's work and benefited from a visit John Shaw made to Paris, just he was a more acute vivisectionist likewise as a more systematic scientist [10]. Acrimonious debates about priority followed, in which Bong did not behave admirably [half dozen, seven]. In reprinting before papers in book course he fabricated important textual changes in an attempt to eternalize his claims [5].
Bong had a special interest in the Vth and VIIth cranial nerves, though he confused their functions to some extent. Incidentally, the issue was antiseptic by a younger colleague at the Middlesex, Herbert Mayo (1796–1852) [9]—once more non without controversy. Simply Bell's clarification of facial palsy, in a letter to the patient's practitioner in 1829 [v], could not accept been more than accurate: "… The face up is twisted to the right side. The left nostril does not movement in respiration. The eye-lids of the left side are non closed when he winks, although, when he attempts it, the eye-brawl is turned upwards, the cheek is relaxed, and the forehead on the left side unruffled."
In 1825 Bell sold his schoolhouse (to Mayo and Hawkins) and his collection (to the Royal Higher of Surgeons in Edinburgh). In 1835 the Middlesex Hospital built and opened its own medical school. A year after Bell accepted the chair of surgery in Edinburgh, only both teaching and surgical work proved somewhat disappointing. He had bouts of melancholy, suffered increasingly from 'spasms of hurting', presumably angina, and died in 1842 on a visit to Hallow (Worcestershire). He had been knighted in 1831. Lady Bong survived him for 34 years; they had no children.
I am grateful to Dr. I.R. Williams for helpful comments.
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References
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Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3101348/
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