BELL, SIR CHARLES (1774-1842), Scottish anatomist, was born at Edinburgh. Educated at the high school and the Uni versity of Edinburgh, he devoted himself chiefly to the study of anatomy, under the direction of his brother John. In 1802 he published a series of engravings showing the anatomy of the brain and nervous system taken from dissections made for the lec tures or demonstrations he gave on the nervous system as part of the course of anatomical instruction of his brother. In 1804 he migrated to London. Before leaving Edinburgh, he had written his work on the Anatomy of Expression, in which he gave a rational explanation of the muscular movements which usually accompany the various emotions and passions.
In 181I Bell published his New Idea of the Anatomy of the Brain, in which he announced the discovery of the different func tions of the nerves corresponding with their relations to different parts of the brain; his latest researches were described in The Nervous System of the Human Body (1830), a collection of papers read by him before the Royal Society. He discovered that in the nervous trunks there are special sensory filaments, the office of which is to transmit impressions from the periphery of the body to the sensorium, and special motor filaments which convey motor impressions from the brain or other nerve centre to the muscles. He also showed that some nerves consist entirely of sensory filaments and are therefore sensory nerves, that others are composed of motor filaments and are therefore motor nerves, whilst a third variety contains both kinds of filaments and is therefore to be regarded as sensory-motor. Lastly, he showed that the anterior roots of the spinal nerves are motor; the poste rior are sensory. These discoveries as a whole must be regarded as the greatest in physiology since that by William Harvey of the circulation of the blood.
In the year 1812 he was appointed surgeon to the Middlesex hospital, a post he retained for 24 years. He was also professor of anatomy, physiology and surgery to the College of Surgeons of London, and for many years teacher of anatomy in the school which used to exist in Great Windmill street. In 1815 he went to Brussels to treat the wounded of the battle of Waterloo. In 1836 he accepted the chair of surgery in the University of Edin burgh. He died at Hallow Park near Worcester on April 28, 1842.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—Bell's chief works, other than those mentioned, are: Bibliography.—Bell's chief works, other than those mentioned, are: System of Comparative Surgery (1807) ; Lectures Concerning the Dis eases of the Urethra (181o) ; Quarterly Reports of Cases in Surgery (1816-18) ; Observations on Injuries of the Spine and of the Thigh Bone (1824) ; and Practical Essays (1841) .