NOTICE OF THE LATE SIR CHARLES BELL. 407 



and that the anterior roots are for motion ; leaving it to be inferred that the pos- 

 terior are for sensation. 



" That the portio dura is a nerve of motion, and the fifth a nerve of motion 

 and sensation. 



" And, lastly, of having been the first who, dissatisfied with the observation 

 and study of the mere form of the various parts of the nervous system, applied 

 the method of experiment to aid him in determining their functions. 



" In a word, there belongs to BELL the great discovery, the greatest in the 

 physiology of the nervous system for twenty centuries, that distinct portions of 

 that system are appropriated to the exercise of different functions." 



The Royal Society of London acknowledged his merit by assigning to him, 

 in the year 1839, the first annual medal of that year, given by his Majesty 

 GEORGE IV. for discoveries in science ; and when a new order of knighthood for 

 men of science and literature was instituted, on the accession of the late King 

 to the throne, Sir CHARLES BELL was amongst the first who were invested. But 

 this was the only public reward he received for his labours, a reward which he 

 would have merited for the services he rendered to the wounded after the battles 

 of Corunna and Waterloo, if he had never rendered any other either to his coun- 

 try or mankind. 



In 1812, he was appointed Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, and a few 

 years afterwards Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery to the College 

 of Surgeons of London. In the hall of that noble institution he delivered a course 

 of lectures which was attended by a very numerous audience, including men of 

 high professional and literary reputation. On the institution of the London Uni- 

 versity College, he was solicited to place himself at the head of the medical de- 

 partment, an office which he afterwards resigned, in consequence of dissensions 

 which arose in the establishment. In 1836 he was appointed to the Chair of Sur- 

 gery in our own University. 



It is not my intention to say more of his various writings on the practice of 

 different branches of his profession, than that they place him in the highest class 

 amongst our writers on surgery. 



But there is another series of his works which must interest every reader, 

 and which, of all his labours, were perhaps the most congenial to his feelings, and 

 afforded him the greatest pleasure. 



In his treatise on Animal Mechanics, written at the desire of the Society for 

 Diffusing Useful Knowledge, he embodied the substance of some of his lectures, 

 which had been so much admired in the College of Surgeons, on the evidences of 

 creative design to be found in the anatomy of the human body. These views had 

 long been deeply impressed upon his mind, and the manner in which he illustrated 

 them probably pointed him out to the executors of the late Earl of BRIDGEWATER as 



