Robert Bell (physician)
Robert Bell (1845 – 1926) was a British physician, naturopath and medical writer, who advocated for alternative cancer treatments and vegetarianism. Biography. Bell was born in 1845. He worked for 21 years at the Glasgow Samaritan Hospital for Women as senior physician. Bell moved to London in 1904. In 1909, he declined an offer of a baronetcy. He was a council member of the Order of the Golden Age. Bell advocated fasting and a diet of uncooked vegetables and fruit, along with eggs and dairy as an optimal diet for maintaining health. Bell later led cancer research at  Battersea Anti-Vivisection Hospital and worked to publicise his view that surgical treatment for cancer was unnecessary and that cancer was preventable by dietetic and hygienic measures. Bell recommended his cancer patients fresh air and a vegetarian diet of uncooked vegetables, nuts and dairy products. An article by Ernest Francis Bashford published by the "British Medical Journal", in 1911, accused Bell of quackery for his cancer treatments; he successfully sued the author and journal for libel and was awarded £2,000 damages plus costs. Bell died at the age of 81 in 1926.