NOTICE OF THE LATE SIR CHARLES BELL. 399 



wit, and much asperity on both sides, by the late distinguished and respected Dr 

 GREGORY and Mr JOHN BELL, ended in a new arrangement, which excluded many 

 of the surgeons from the only hospital within their reach. Sir CHARLES BELL 

 happened to be of this number ; and so highly did he prize the advantages he had 

 lost, that in a printed memorial, presented to the Managers of the Infirmary, he 

 offered to pay L.I 00 a-year, and to transfer to them, for the use of the students, 

 the Museum he had collected, on condition that he should be " allowed to stand 

 by the bodies when dissected in the theatre of the Infirmary, and to make notes 

 and drawings of the diseased appearances." 



This proposal, which was made in October 1804, was rejected ; and per- 

 ceiving that he had so many difficulties to contend with in Edinburgh, he went 

 in the course of the following year to London, to inquire into the expediency of 

 removing thither. The prospect there could not have been very encouraging ; 

 but he had relinquished all hope of being able to surmount the numerous impedi- 

 ments which stood in his way here ; and in 1806 he went to the capital. 



It is impossible not to admire the courage with which Sir CHARLES BELL, then 

 a solitary and unsupported stranger in London, trusted to his own resources for 

 success in a field which was already occupied by CLINE, ABERNETHY, COOPER, and 

 other eminent surgeons, supported by the great hospitals with which they were 

 connected, and then lecturing daily to large audiences. To have failed in such 

 an enterprize, would have been no disgrace ; but to have succeeded and to have 

 established a high reputation as a teacher, in a department of science so preoccu- 

 pied, is unquestionable evidence of the highest merit. 



He immediately commenced a course of lectures on anatomy and surgery, 

 and rapidly rose to distinction. " In the lecture-room," says one of his able suc- 

 cessors in the Middlesex Hospital, " in the lecture-room he shone almost without 

 a rival. His views were nearly always solid, they were always ingenious, and 

 his manner and language enchained the attention of his audience. Dull indeed 

 must have been the pupil who could have slumbered when CHARLES BELL was in 

 the professorial chair. In short, Sir CHARLES BELL made his pupils think ; and 

 interesting as anatomy is, even if considered as a mere branch of natural history, 

 he taught them to value it most of all as a guide to the art of healing." * 



Previous to his departure from Edinburgh, he had written his work on the 

 " Anatomy of Expression," which was published shortly after his arrival in Lon- 

 don, and immediately attracted public attention. He had felt as a physiologist, 

 as an artist, the want of some philosophical and systematic explanation of the 

 rationale of expression ; of those muscular movements which are the natural ex- 

 ternal indications of the passions and emotions of the mind. He had observed 

 that many works of art, otherwise excellent, exhibited anatomical inconsistencies, 



* ARNOT'S Hunterian Oration, 1843. 



