90 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



— Bell's Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain met with no more 

 attention than it deserved ; his ambition " to make the town ring 

 with it" was not crowned with success nor did it serve "to 

 swell his name into importance." During the next ten years 

 Bell made no further attempt to develop the Idea ; in 1821, 

 when he sent his first paper on the Nerves to the Royal Society, 

 he does not allude to it. 



Bell, now of middle age, makes his second bid for scientific 

 fame and begins to send papers to the Royal Society. The period 

 1 82 1 to 1829 is that of his greatest activity as a physiological 

 investigator. At first he has the assistance of his brother-in- 

 law John Shaw, later, i.e. from 1827, that of Alexander Shaw, 

 who left Cambridge to take his brother's place. During this 

 period Bell published the six papers in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions of the Royal Society, to which we alluded above, upon which 

 alone his claim must stand or fall. And strictly speaking it is 

 only to the first two of these papers, which precede Magendie's 

 discovery of 1822, that appeal can be made in favour of Bell. 

 Since, however, these six papers form a connected group of 

 which the first and sixth contain the most crucial part of Bell's 

 case — that relating to the fifth nerve— it is necessary to review 

 or at least to enumerate them as a whole. 



The six papers are as follows : 



(1) 1 82 1. On the Nerves : giving an account of some experiments on 



their structure and functions, which lead to a new ar- 

 rangement of the system. By Charles Bell, Esq. 

 Communicated by Sir Humphry Davy, Bart, P.R.S. 

 — Read July 12, 1821. — Philosophical Transactions of 

 the Royal Society, 1821, Part II. pp. 398-424. 



(2) 1822. Of the Nerves which associate the muscles of the chest in 



the actions of breathing, speaking and expression. 

 Being a continuation of the paper on the Structure and 

 Functions of the Nerves. By Charles Bell, Esq. Com- 

 municated by Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., LL.D., P.R.S. 

 — Read May 2, 1822. — Phil. Trans. R.S. 1822, Part II. 

 pp. 284-312. 



(3) 1823. On the Motions oj the Eye, in illustration of the uses of the 



Muscles and Nerves of the Orbit. By Charles Bell, 

 Esq. Communicated by Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., 

 P.R.S.— Read March 20, 1823.— Phil. Trans. R.S. 

 1823, p. 166. 



(4) 1823. Second part of the paper on the Nerves of the Orbit, by 



Charles Beli, Esq. — Read June 19, 1823. — Phil. Trans. 

 R.S. 1823, p. 289. 



