An artist in surgery and a medical educator

When Charles Bell's (1774–1842) Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain was printed privately in 1811, understanding of the structure and function of the brain and of localization within it were not well advanced by reference to our beliefs nowadays. Bell suggested that the superficial part of the cerebral hemispheres was concerned with intellectual function, that the will is expressed through the medium of the motor nerves, that the deep parts of the hemispheres are concerned with sensation, and that the cerebellum provides connections between the brain and the rest of the body. Bell's short essay is helpfully reproduced in Michael Aminoff's new biography. Of course, Aminoff provides us with much, much more here too. Bell has become interesting not only for his then advanced thinking in relation to neurology (his primary work was as a surgeon) but also for his involvement in medical education and politics at the turn of the 18th century into the 19th.

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