page_title: Charles Bell
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Bell / Works
caption_attribution_description: English: Plate 10 depicting the full section of the brain from "Anatomy of the Brain Explained in a Series of Engravings." Image credited to Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
context_page_description: Sir Charles Bell KH FRS FRSE FRCSE MWS was a Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist, and philosophical theologian. He is noted for discovering the difference between sensory nerves and motor nerves in the spinal cord. He is also noted for describing Bell's palsy.
  His three older brothers included Robert Bell a Writer to the Signet, John Bell, also a noted surgeon and writer; and the advocate George Joseph Bell who became a professor of law at the University of Edinburgh and a principal clerk at the Court of Session.
context_section_description: Charles Bell was a prolific author who combined his anatomical knowledge with his artistic eye to produce a number of highly detailed and beautifully illustrated books. In 1799, Bell published his first work “A System of Dissections, explaining the Anatomy of the Human Body, the manner of displaying Parts and their Varieties in Disease”. His second work was the completion of his brother's four-volume set of “The Anatomy of the Human Body” in 1803. In that same year, Bell published his three series of engravings titled “Engravings of the Arteries”, “Engravings of the Brain”, and “Engravings of the Nerves.” These set of engravings consisted of intricate and detailed anatomical diagrams accompanied with labels and a brief description of their functionality in the human body and were published as an educational tool for aspiring medical students. The “Engravings of the Brain” are of particular importance for this marked Bell's first published attempt at fully elucidating the organization of the nervous system. In his introduction to the work, Bell comments on the ambiguous nature of the brain and its inner workings, a topic that would hold his interest for the remainder of his life.
  In 1806, with his eye on a teaching post at the Royal Academy, Bell published his 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, asserting the existence of a uniquely human system of facial muscles in the service of a human species with a unique relationship to the Creator, ideals which paralleled with those of William Paley. After the failure of his application (Sir Thomas Lawrence, 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 detailed studies of the nervous system in 1811, in his privately circulated book An Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain. In this book, Bell described his idea of the different nervous tracts connecting with different parts of brain and thus leading to different functionality. His experiments to investigate this consisted of cutting open the spinal cord of a rabbit and touching different columns of the cord. He found that an irritation of the anterior columns led to a convulsion of the muscles, while an irritation of the posterior columns had no visible effect. These experiments led Bell to declare that he was the first to distinguish between sensory and motor nerves. While this essay is considered by many to be the founding stone of clinical neurology, it was not well received by Bell's peers. His experimentation was criticized and the idea that he presented of the anterior and posterior roots being connected to the cerebrum and cerebellum respectively, was rejected. Furthermore, Bell's original essay of 1811 did not actually contain a clear description of motor and sensory nerve roots as Bell later claimed, and he seems to have issued subsequent incorrectly dated revisions with subtle textual alterations.
  Despite this lukewarm response, Charles Bell continued to study the anatomy of the human brain and laid his focus upon the nerves connected to it. In 1821, Bell published the “On the Nerves: Giving an Account of some Experiments on Their Structure and Functions, Which Lead to a New Arrangement of the System” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This paper held Bell's most famous discovery, that the facial nerve or seventh cranial nerve is a nerve of muscular action. This was quite an important discovery because surgeons would often cut this nerve as an attempted cure for facial neuralgia, but this would often render the patient with a unilateral paralysis of the facial muscles, now known as Bell's Palsy. Due to this publication, Charles Bell is regarded as one of the first physicians to combine the scientific study of neuroanatomy with clinical practice.
  Bell's studies on emotional expression played a catalytic role in the development o
caption: Plate 10 from “Anatomy of the Brain Explained in a Series of Engravings” Image credited to Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.
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